The trail is deceptively short, only 17 miles to the summit, the site of the US - Canada border and the end of many men's dreams, and just 33 miles to Lake Bennett. Bennett was the end of one horror and the start of another for many; where the thousands of boats were built despite the agonies of whipsawing, before the long and sometimes dan­gerous drift down the Yukon River to Dawson. We had already walked a hundred yards or so of the White Pass trail near Log Cabin and seen hundreds of tin cans, pots, pans, tools, boots, sledge runners; all abandoned by exhausted goldrushers desperately trying to avoid defeat by lightening their huge loads when faced by the severity of the hills ahead and by the realization that they would now have to carry everything on their backs. Their horses had been killed by the rigours of the almost non existent trail, by the perilous footing, by ill treatment and starvation. The Freds and Ethels of the polyester and purple rinse set, touring Alaska and the Yukon in their air conditioned buses, never see these places and sights even though they pass close by. We have seen, but something was still missing; there had been no personal challenge, none of the hardship necessary for us to understand their ordeals. We had settled for the twentieth century soft option, returning also to our air conditioned tour bus and our packed lunches. We felt very little different from the next bus load of tour­ists, fresh off the (Caribbean Princess tour) boat and on their way to the souvenir shops in the next town to buy the perfect present for Aunt Polly or Aunt Esther. We des­pised their more crass members, but we must remember that many are old and really look­ing for companionship not scenery. To do what they are doing may be just as much a thrill and adventure for them and merely get­ting up the steep steps on the bus may also be physically taxing for bodies weakened by age.

      We eagerly quizzed some of our fellow industrial archaeologists who went on the Chilko­ot option, and their guide, American Parks Ranger and archaeologist Karl Gurcke. They thrilled us with their accounts of the Chilkoot's beauty and rigour, the sense of history revealed in the 33 mile living outdoor museum. We learned that the trail could only be covered by backpackers carrying everything needed for a hike lasting up to 5 days. There are no services on the Chilkoot and no easy way out.  Once in you are committed. It seemed within our grasp and we vowed to come back and do it ourselves. In our hearts we didn't believe we ever would, it was just the same old fantasy only now in much more vivid detail. We had so much else to do.

      The history and beauty of the Yukon is more haunting than anywhere else we know. The old yearnings kept welling up. We must go back, we must follow the Trail of '98 over the Chilkoot Pass, we must relive the history, we must feel the stress. Gradually the decision was made, we would hike the Chilkoot trail.

      Emotion and dreams were now tempered by the realities of planning. We would go in summer 1992 as the trail is not open in winter and we would use modern camping equipment. We should have three people - son Tom agreed to come with us. We would survive, we were basically fit; after all we had all run marathons, twenty six miles in a day, and one included a climb of three thousand feet, similar to the Chilkoot. This hike would only be seven miles longer than a marathon and could take three to five days not just four or five hours, but we had to cross far more difficult terrain and carry heavy backpacks.

      We re-read all the books and guides; we got the latest information from the US and Canadian Parks Services. Their literature told of how to deal with bears and how to prevent avalanches. It's easy, we make loud noises to scare off the bears but at the same time, keep deathly quiet to prevent avalanches. We bought and avidly read Archie Satterfield's excellent guide to hiking the Chilkoot Pass. Satterfield combines historical detail with practical details. With his help, we planned our itinerary, four days on the trail seemed best considering our age and backpacking inexperience, but there was no way of avoiding a very long and difficult third day when we must climb over the summit. We allowed for a fifth contingency day on the trail, and days at either end for travel, last minute preparations and sight seeing. With careful planning we could start on the trail at mid week and so, we hoped, avoid the prob­lems of crowded campsites. We elected to live comfortably at either end of the hike rather than camp throughout and so we booked hotel rooms. We made our base in Whitehorse and planned to stay the nights before and after the hike in Skagway, Alaska and at Carcross, a historic town at the down­stream Northern end of Lake Bennett. All the plans and arrangements meshed and we booked our flights, hotel rooms and most of the local travel from Ottawa. We were com­mitted, it started to sink in: eager expectancy and slight panic.

      We accumulated our equipment slowly; new, borrowed, old. Tom already had a large but fairly lightweight dome tent, with area for six sleeping midgets who could grow to over seven foot tall without bumping their heads. It looks very different from the super lightweight backpacking tents in the camping stores which cost up to six times as much. Surprisingly we discovered Tom's tent only weighs about 5 pounds per person against about 4 pounds per person for the one and two man backpacker's tents. We decided the extra space and height were worth it. After all the goldrushers' tents weighed perhaps 15 pounds per person. We tested several dehydrated foods and found the taste of water purification tablets quite accept­able. We rediscovered our old butane camp­ing stove, over 25 years old and unused for twenty. There was still a part full cylin­der in place and a new spare. It lit immediate­ly, no leaks in twenty years. We decided to use it when we found we could still buy butane cyl­inders. New sleeping bags and the heavenly lightweight Thermarest air mat­tresses reas­sured us that we would sleep com­fortably at night, necessary for fifty year olds. We bought a new internal frame backpack for Jo. I bor­rowed one that had already been over the Chilkoot and Tom used his old boy scout pack with some ingenious modifications. These were not exactly as planned, for a brea­kage in Whitehorse, the day before setting out forced a desperate improvisation. Tom's stan­dard nylon sports tote bag, originally planned to carry spare clothes not needed on the trail, and to be left at the hotel, was securely strapped to the bottom of the external frame and proved outstandingly successful both for convenience and extra space. It was even a good colour match. Unfortunately Tom's pack was not completely waterproof, which later caused him an uncomfortable night in a damp sleeping bag.

      Our packs were stowed and weighed under 35 pounds each as we left Ottawa on Air Canada's July 21st early morning nonstop flight to Vancouver. Our earlier dislike for the Airbus was lessened by time spent in the cockpit. We transferred to a Canadian Air­lines 737 and a two hour flight, mainly over clouds, took us nearly a thousand miles North West to Whitehorse. Although we missed the breathtaking views of the mountain ranges, we clearly saw Marsh Lake from which the Yukon river emerges and the once dangerous Miles Canyon and Whitehorse rapids on our final approach to the airport. We saw the power dam which provides Whitehorse with electricity and which has partly tamed the river. Our pilot called our attention to an old Harvard trainer practising aerobatics for the following week's air show. The modern airport is on a plateau, above and larger than the town. A Mustang fighter on the ground, also there for the air show provided a fitting link with the 50th anniversary of the Alaska High­way opening. Celebrations of the anniversary were pre-occupying the inhabitants of Whitehorse and providing a successful tourist draw. The highway was built to provide essen­tial defen­ces against invasion during World War II and ensured the growth of Whitehorse and the development of land tourism in the Yukon and Alaska. Our taxi driver to the Taku Hotel told us the usual tales of the huge mosquitoes and all the other stories Yukon tourists expect to hear. Mosquitoes were never a serious problem. Although present, they were easily controlled by Off in its new non-aerosol pack­age.

      We had only a single hour to scout the several supply stores to replace our camping fuel which is rightly banned on planes. We planned to buy perishable food in Skagway but worried that butane might not be avail­able there. We finally got some just as the shops closed. Dinner at the Taku restaurant was served by a waitress who had just started, with a charm and the type of walk that could almost make a man forget her incompetence. I predicted the waitress would be fired within the week. Jo had a fresh fruit cocktail for dessert, laced with a considerable portion of brandy. It may have been one of her best memories of the trip; an experience she vowed must be repeated as a celebration on our triumphant return to Whitehorse as con­querors of the Chilkoot one week later. An early night.

       Rising early the next day, we were off to Skagway in Alaska, nine miles from Dyea and the trailhead. En route we would repeat our 1990 scenic ride on the narrow gauge train through the White Pass down to the Skagway water­front.

      The White Pass and Yukon Railway ran from 1900 onwards from tideway in Skagway to Whitehorse and cut off three of the four most difficult parts of the long journey to Dawson. It was begun in 1899, even as the later goldrushers were arriving or lugging their loads over the horrendously difficult trails. Imagine their despair, having sold everything to finance their trip, and finding themselves on the boat to Skagway, sharing their space with rails and locomotives for the railway. They must already have known they had missed any chance of fortune, so that the arduous trip to Dawson and the goldfields became an end in itself. The train now only runs on its most scenic and mountainous part between Skagway and Fraser, eight miles beyond the White Pass summit into Canada. The railway charters a bus, timed to meet the train, for the 80 miles between Whitehorse and Fraser. The bus stops for ten minutes at historic Carcross where we first see Bennett Lake and we buy a delicious ice cream at the famous Matthew Watson's General Store, open continuously since the goldrush. During the harder parts of the trail, the anticipation of another Carcross ice cream or a cool beer in the equally historic Caribou Hotel will mentally sustain me. Jo sometimes had the alternative inspiration of a Taku fruit cocktail.

      Fraser is bleak and grey. The excavated earth has not grown plants in years as it is exposed and above the tree line. There is just a modern conventional customs shed similar to that at any other road border cross­ing point, a pole with its red maple leaf flag fully extended by the wind, five identical Canadian customs officers' houses on a rise, a wooden locomotive water tank, long aban­doned fol­lowing dieselization, and a few rail­way sidings. The only absence from the typical border scene is the matching US customs shed, which is several miles south of the actual border at the White Pass summit. While waiting for the train to arrive, we went into the customs shed to find how to clear customs on re-entering Canada half way through our hike over the trail. Fraser is the nearest Cus­toms point, but is two full days walk from the Chilkoot summit and well off route for backpackers who wish to go to Bennett and on to Whitehorse. A friendly young officer told us he could clear us now, even though we had not yet even entered the USA before returning to Canada. We just wrote down our names to say we would be coming over the pass and estimated the day we would cross, and that was it. We need not see him again. He hinted that if we thought we were strong enough (by impli­cation stupid enough to try) to smuggle in the odd stereo or refrigerator over the pass, he wasn't going to penalize us with any duty. In reality, our plans would bring us back to Fraser, using a special back­packers' railcar service on a portion of the railway from Be­nnett to Fraser not open to normal trains.

      An attractive lady and young child arrived from nowhere to sell incredibly expensive snacks and drinks from a new Jeep's tailgate to the tourists who will change from their buses to the train. The spirit of enterprise and ability to exploit the gullible Cheechako (new­comer) survives still in the North. The fleet of super modern Princess Line tour buses arrive from Whitehorse hotels, full of polyester. The articulated buses have dark glass windows and probably are complete with personal TVs and videos of the scenery the occupants could see from the window. It is rumoured that the buses have pool tables for the few surviving males. With much fussing from the tour guides and farewells adequate for a dep­arting army, some of the polyester, paying extra, get off the buses to go by train. They will meet up again in Skagway within two hours with their friends who will remain on the buses, doubt­less with suitable rejoicing over the safe trip. Our railway char­ter bus continued on, rider­less, to Skagway and, a pleasant surprise, took our heavy packs for us.

      The narrow gauge train arrives. It has two old diesels from about 1960 but some of the passenger cars date from about 1900. The few rich and the many failed prospectors would have travelled on these very cars. We watched the engines change ends using the passing loop in preparation for the downhill return run to Skagway. The appear­ance of the train causes some consternation. "Its not very luxurious is it, Polly? I thought it would be newer, Esther." This is hist­ory, ladies.

      The 28 mile train ride was breathtaking, with the track clawed out of the rock face, crossing waterfalls and trestle bridges over deep chasms during its 2600 feet descent to sea level. A young hostess provided a lively commentary over a loudspeaker system referring us to the maps we had all been given and to the large milepost signs at win­dow height.  She managed to sound interested despite giving the same talk day after day.  After 8 miles, at the White Pass summit, we passed Canadian and American Flags and crossed into Alaska and another time zone. We changed our watches and wondered if we would rem­ember to change them back on our return. If we forgot we might miss our railcar special train at Ben­nett on the last day and every other connec­tion that day. We had splendid views of the White Pass trail, and descended from sub Arc­tic tundra to Pacific rain forest in our 90 min­ute ride to Skagway, civilization, cruise ships, and souvenir shops. The train ride, sometimes within 50 yards of the historic White Pass trail near the summit, gave Tom a magnificent first impression of what it would be like on the upper parts of the similar but higher Chilkoot trail, 6 miles to the West. We had panoramic views of the valley and sometimes of the track ahead and behind. We glimpsed another train far below us, looking tiny against the moun­tain back­drop, running on what looked like a pencil line drawn across the hillside. Amazingly it was simply further ahead on the same single track. American customs on the train at Skag­way were cursory.

      Our last night of luxury was to be in the West­mark Hotel, at the end of a two block hike along wooden boardwalks from the station. The public rooms are lavishly decorated in a style of plush red Edwardian decadence. The afternoon was occupied wait­ing for our room to be readied, tempting fate by buying "I Climbed the Chilkoot" T shirts and buying perishables including two bread loaves and a luxury - personal chocolate. We walked around historic Skagway, around the dock area trying to get close to steam locomotive Number 73.

      We also checked in, as requested, at the US Park Ser­vices Visitor Center which was beautifully converted from the original railway offices and were told the conditions were abnormally wet and tough by a petite young woman ranger who did her best to scare us. She had been over the pass a week before. We would get wet feet as the rivers were over the stepping stones, we would be cold and should wear two hats, extra gloves etc. There would be more snow than usual, snow bridges might cave in under us. We were tempted to point out that we ran and skied in much more severe condi­tions than we would be likely to encounter and we knew how to dress warmly as we had all been much further North and much higher than the Chilkoot. I wanted to point out that Tom had lived for weeks on top of a glacier 83 degrees North during summer jobs as a student. Still I sup­pose she was more used to Floridians or Californians than rugged Canadians. I refrained from telling her that getting wet was no problem as I came from Britain, that I seem to make a habit of falling off beaver dams into cold water while orienteering. Wet feet would not be a novel experience for me. Everything she said about the conditions turned out to be correct.

      We arranged and paid for the daily Skagway to Whitehorse Sourdough Shuttle van to pick us up at Fraser on Monday and take us to Car­cross after our hike, so this effectively com­mitted us to just four days on the trail. In the evening, we introduced Tom to the Red Onion, a goldrush bordello now converted to a restaurant and dined there.

      We were ready, we had seen the interest­ing parts of Skagway, so we decided to start earlier than originally planned the next morn­ing, Thursday, which dawned bright and stayed bright for the whole 19 hours of day­light. The hotel provided a free shuttle van to the trail head at Dyea. The young Californian driver took our photo for us and left. We had to go on; it would have been an ignominious nine mile walk back. After a few yards there was a toilet and a place to log in. Nobody else was in sight. We were the first hikers of the day. Our ordeal had begun. We were somewhat intimidated by previous signers, Westmark Hotel student staff, who intended to do the whole trail in a day. I believe that fit people travelling light, in good conditions, could hike the trail in about 13 hours, well within day­light. Elizabeth Ruddick who had done the trail a year or so earlier and given us invalu­able help in prepara­tion, told us that runners had done it in eight and a half hours. Heaven help them if any­thing went wrong. The Chilkoot is no place to be in­adequately equipped in bad conditions. When Eliz­abeth had been on the trail the temperature had reached over 30 celsius. We were more fort­unate. The temperature was just warm enough for shorts except on the higher sec­tions. We later estimated we walked for about 21 hours dur­ing the four days excluding breaks. Nearly all hikers go North, like us, for histori­cal accu­racy and because the steep section to the Summit is easier and safer going upwards in bad condi­tions with packs.

      The goldrush stampeders travelled mainly during freeze up and so could pull laden sledges along the frozen Taiya River. Taiya and Dyea may be alternative spellings of the same Chilkat Indian word. Their path fre­quently forded the river and was fairly level. In summer the river is often torrential but just navigable by experienced boaters to Can­yon City eight miles up. For most, in summer, the only possible trail now is high up on the hillside, East of the river, so there is a tough initial climb along a rocky and root entangled track less than a foot wide. The Park Ranger's staff maintain the trail well and have moved boulders in places to make it slightly easier. Some of these, in pairs, form open-top step­ping stone "bridges" for runoff water to pass through in a small channel. The trail is very hard work for about a mile until it descends to the river and continues almost level for the next three miles to Finnegan's Point along what was originally a wagon road. For the first of many times, we begrudged any drop because we knew that we would have to regain the height later. We met several of the cheerful trail workers along this section who do a great job keeping the trail clean and tidy. Finnegan's Point was our first chance to camp but we decided to push on to Canyon City at the 7.8 mile point to give us an easier second day. Just after the 1950's sawmill, near Fin­negan's Point we saw a black bear and cub. They came onto the trail maybe less than 100 yards ahead, totally unaware of our presence. We got a photo (the two specks in the dis­tance would be impressive), made a loud noise to attract the mother's attention, waved our arms to look big to help her locate us, because bears have very poor sight, and per­haps even scare her. She was suitably frightened (she really jumped) and ran off the trail with her cub following. After a minute or two, hoping to ensure that there wasn't a second laggardly cub, we passed the scene of our excitement but there were no visible tracks to show just how big the bear was. We remembered the advice in the trail guide: don't ever get between a mother and her cub(s). This is worth thinking about, but not too much, because its not very reassuring. How are you sure you haven't already got between the mother and cub if you don't see a cub? You see a bear a few feet ahead. How can you tell if its a mother? Do you turn your back on her to look for the cub? You realize that even if you are not yet at risk, a walk in any direction might very easily put you between her and her not yet visible cub. It's best to make a large noise and risk the ava­lanche, especially if you are well below the snow line.

      The first few miles of the trail have dis­tance posts and a well defined path so that we were able to estimate our hiking speed fairly accurately and this provided a useful guide later. In hilly terrain we achieved about 1.6 miles an hour but this speeded up to almost 2.5 miles an hour on the flat. We soon established a pattern on the trail. On uphill bits Tom or I would lead as Jo naturally travelled slowest. On flat ground, Jo was happy to lead and she really pushed the pace. I found it difficult being last uphill because my natural method was to climb faster than the others but take short breaks. This meant I was constantly catching Jo with her steady but slower pace and my cadence was broken. On hilly sections passing was almost impossible. Tom, ever tolerant, could walk anywhere and at any pace without complaint. Nobody ever seemed unhappy if someone else stopped for a short "pack" break when a suitable boulder allowed us to take the weight off our shoul­ders.

      Irene glacier, way above us, always pro­vided a fine view to the West and gave us a legitimate excuse for a short break. It hangs precipitously over the far side of the Taiya valley, its runoff channels cut almost vertically in the hillside.

      The present Canyon City camp is in woods and was almost invisible from the trail until we suddenly encountered the log cabin shelter just after crossing a wooden bridge over a cascading melt water mountain stream. One day gone, 8 miles covered, 25 miles to do.

      The tent sites were flat and big enough for our tent; another worry over. As we were first at the camp we had our choice of sites. All are delightfully situated within the sound of a waterfall and the rushing Taiya. A well main­tained pit toilet was nearby. The contents, as at all other sites are collected in a large plas­tic tub and periodically flown out by helicop­ter. I expect the pilots have a name for this chore. The campsites are free and toilet paper was provided by the US and Canadian gov­ernments, good use of taxpayers' money. The shelter was made in the 1960s and was well weathered. It had a metal stove, tables for cooking and some rustic chairs. There was chopped wood for emergencies.

      Canyon City is a historical camp site but the modern camp is wisely placed on the East of the river, some distance from the original site on the West to protect its more valuable historical artifacts. Canyon City was originally an Indian camp but expanded to 1500 people in the height of the goldrush. It was stripped of trees for buildings and firewood. Now it is re-covered by second growth trees and bushes. As with other sites on the US side, the ground is rocky. Pitching tents for 1500 amid the rocks and tree stumps must have been diffi­cult during the rush. Visible major artifacts include the steam boiler used to power one of the short-lived overhead cable tramways built to carry baggage over the pass and a large cook stove. The historic site is reached by a modern wire cable suspension bridge over the Taiya canyon. It was time for contemplation, each to privately compare our experiences and our expectations, to imagine ourselves as stampeders. Tom disappeared to be found and joined by Jo, sitting on the wooden bridge gazing at the waterfall. I climbed up the hillside behind the cabin and found myself looking down on the waterfall. I sat on a rock, alone with my thoughts. I was starting to understand the magic of the place.

7

      Only a few other hikers were on the trail but a close com­radeship soon developed amongst us. Len Webster and three young women formed a friendly group who arrived soon after us at Canyon City. Two of the women, Marie and Kim were outgoing with great senses of humour. The third woman, Beth, was quieter and worked with Len. She was the granddaughter of the famous Corporal Dempster, the Mounted Police officer who lead the heroic rescue party which found the tragically lost and frozen Fitzgerald police patrol from Dawson to Fort McPherson in 1910. Len runs his own outdoors leadership company called Sea to Sky Trails and so his hike was like research and development work.  They had driven up from Vancouver along the Alaska Highway. We also met Oliver, a young German army bands­man, on his own, who we saw at several other sites.

      One young and fit but tired looking backpacker came through and stopped for a rest and talk before continuing. He had started out late in the day, was delighted with his progress and kept talking of the three miles he had to do to Sheep Camp. He only realized just before he left that he was at Canyon City, not at Pleasant Camp. He had done almost three miles less than he had thought.

      We entered the shelter just in time to hear Tom telling everyone that his parents would kill him if they found he was eating a full meal with the Webster group who had cooked too much. Our entry and his embarrassment caused great amusement. After finishing their meal, he managed to eat ours also, such is the rigour of the trail.

      The meals soon developed into a pattern. Breakfast was oatmeal or bread with jam or peanut butter or pancakes with coffee. Lunch was sandwiches and cheese, dried fruit, trail mix, and some of our personal chocolate. We drank cold water from fast moving streams rather than make coffee except at Lindeman where we had a longer lunch break. We purified the water by tablets which turned the water brown but did not produce any obnox­ious taste. Supper was cooked from one of the packs of dehydrated foods, carefully planned, packaged and labelled by Jo in sealed polyethylene bags. Tom later disputed the care in the labelling when he prepared a meal at Happy Camp and, playing to the crowd by wilfully mis-reading Jo's cryptic and almost illegible instructions, turned this to his advantage and to Jo's embarrassment.  We had coffee or drinking chocolate. Food throughout was wholesome and satisfying.

      The first evening was spent listening to each others' tales. Len in particular recounted bear stories including one where a reluctant woman camper who had been told some out­landish stories over drinks, spent the night, terrified, alone in her car under a street light, her hands frozen to the steering wheel. While in this position in her car, she was actually approached by a bear.

      Storage of food at nights can be a problem because of the bears. They must not be enc­our­aged to expect food at campsites or in garb­age. The shelters have limited locker space where food can be safely stored. The recommended alternative is to put all your food in a bag, tie the bag to a rope and sling the rope over a small branch of a tree a few feet from the trunk, leaving it suspended so that bears cannot reach it from either the ground or by climbing the tree. Black bears can climb, grizzly bears cannot. Tom believes that the best way to tell the difference is to invite the bear to chase you up a tree. I think a better idea would be to provoke the bear to chase the grouchy camper we later met at Happy Camp, up the tree. A 30 foot length of rope for sling­ing food over the tree branch is one of the essential pieces of equip­ment each party of hikers are expected to take with them. At Canyon City, and at the next two sites we were early enough to grab locker space. The Webster bunch were not and had to use the bear poles that the rangers had erected to make life simpler. The poles are like a flat topped cro­quet loop, but over fif­teen feet high and made of steel tubing. A rope is per­manently looped over and in theory you only have to tie your rope to it and pull it over the top member, then anchor your rope to cleats.  Len man­aged to get all the ropes looped and tangled and so he was given ample con­flicting advice by three helpful women in his party and the three of us giving less helpful advice, on how to untangle things using a con­venient stick. The stick was barely long enough so Len was always at full stretch. Tom specially took every opportunity to get his own back from the ribbing he got from Len and the women when he was caught hav­ing the two suppers.

     The second day was our easiest as we only had to hike just over five miles to our desti­nation, Sheep Camp, situated at the foot of the long climb to the summit and the last camp in the trees before the final steep climb. Sheep Camp is nearly always crowded because it is the traditional end of the first day's hike for the fit three-day hikers. We were first to pack up and leave Canyon City. We climbed about 600 feet on our way to Pleasant Camp which is at about 1000 feet. The trail kept well above the canyon through which the Taiya noisily plunges. Pleasant Camp is sandy and on the banks of the Taiya which at this point is braided with some slow branches and others fast flowing. We lunched, contented, sitting on a log at river's edge. The next two miles to Sheep Camp through woods were comparatively level and rock free and Jo led a cracking pace so that we got there by early afternoon. Again we were first. Where were all these super fast hikers? We chose a superb but very noisy tent site only five yards from one branch of the Taiya which crashed down a rocky bed in a foamy torrent. The tent was fifty yards from the shelter which was almost identical to that at Canyon City and a hundred yards from the single toilet. To get to our tent from the shelter we had to cross an uneven wooden plank bridge without hand­rails over another rapid branch of the river. A fall and we would have been back in Canyon City within twenty minutes. It was best not to cross this bridge in the dark so we planned our liquid intake carefully.

      There was a ranger station nearby and we went to report our bear sighting as requested but a trail worker told us the ranger was out - escorting a 72 year old lady up to the summit, 2600 feet higher. A seventy two year old lady? Rather a special old lady as we later discovered. Gradually the camp site filled with about eighteen tents. Ours stood out like a skyscraper and was cause for quiet amusement. Sheep Camp became the base camp for many of the thousands of prospectors who had to tote their required ton of provisions over the pass and at times the tent city had over 8000 occupants.  At its most busy, Sheep Camp city stretched up hill almost to The Scales three miles away. Sheep Camp once boasted streets, hotels, restaurants, dance halls and even laundries, mostly tented: hard to believe now because of the rocky ground and the abundance of trees now covering the area, making it almost impossible to pitch a tent except where the ground has been cleared. It was and still is the last camp below the tree line. It had good water and abundant wood for fuel at first and was relatively flat. The later arrivals in 1898 had to pitch their tents on higher ground without shelter from trees and without convenient wood for fuel, so nec­essary at minus forty. Most of the evidence and artifacts in Sheep Camp have now been swallowed by the lush second growth forest. We were early to bed as usual, the noise of the rapids, only feet away soothed rather than kept us awake as we feared. We were asleep within minutes.

      The next day, Saturday, started clear and we were soon off but were not first this time. The ranger had strongly suggested that we should leave by about eight to get through the avalanche areas before the snow beyond the summit softened during mid afternoon. It was to be a hard day with each of its three sec­tions testing us in its own way. Up to now the summer trail had been harder than the winter toboggan route over the frozen river. From here to the summit we would follow the same route exactly and carry weights similar to many of the stampeders. A few outstanding carrying feats were recorded but many could pack little more than our 30 or 40 pounds up the steep sections. We would have to walk a mini­mum of 7.5 miles to Happy Camp, four miles beyond the summit. The stampeders mostly cached their goods and camped at the summit or returned to Sheep Camp. Most had to make from 30 to 40 trips to the summit before the North West Mounted Police were satisfied that they were adequately provision­ed for a year in the wilderness and would let them into Canada. This rule almost certainly protected thousands from starvation the next winter.

      The first three miles took us up nearly one thousand eight hundred feet, from the rain forest with its ever decreasing tree size into an almost barren boulder field called Talus and sub arctic tundra in the geology and geography books. We were passed by several of the rapid hikers who intended to go through to Lindeman, five miles beyond Happy Camp, our destination. We were also passed by the Webster bunch just before The Scales, slightly ignominio­us, but we claimed we were admiring the views and studying the artifacts. The views of Saussure glacier to the West were magnificent with blue ice overhang­ing the gullies and waterfalls hastening the turbid water to the valley. There were no sustained steep portions in the first part up to The Scales, just a long and sometimes narrow winding drag, often over bare rock, which would clearly have been too difficult for horses. This section was for obvious reasons called the Long Hill. The packs started to become very heavy and it is easy to under­stand why the thousands of stampeders began to abandon so many items. These once were litter on the trail but are now, still in the same places, valuable historical artifacts which must not be touched. We saw shovels, pans, plates, stoves, water containers, old boots and many unidentifiable objects on the bare rocks and in the sparse vegetation. Many of the artifacts were rusty flattened food cans, almost certain­ly camping litter rather than discarded loads. The present, "If you pack it in, pack it out" policy was not enforced in 1898. Other major large historical items like the wooden supports for the cable tramways were highlighted at view-points by beautifully presented framed signs with descriptions and vintage photos. Reading these provided welcome breaks.

      The rain started somewhere above Sheep Camp and continued for the rest of the day as a fine and chilling drizzle. Our rain suits were effec­tive but hot, and sweat from the climbing made everything we wore damp.

Whole sections of Long Hill were still snow covered and the suggested path was defined by orange painted poles. The route over the rocky sections was indicated by small stone cairns. The snow fields covered meltwater streams and could easily cave in especially at their edges where they were undercut. Two minor disasters occurred during this section. First I fell, complete with backpack, a foot or so into an ice cold stream while trying to refill a water bottle when the edge of a snow bridge collapsed under me.  My first view of under­cut snow was from below. The second disaster came soon after when a film broke in the camera and a whole reel was lost as it could not be rewound. We did not know but the camera was unreliable for the remainder of the trip. We had lost amongst other possibly priceless photographic memories, our bear photo taken back near Finnegan's Point. Per­haps we can now claim the bears were only ten yards away. Jo reported bear tracks on the snow just after the camera failed. Fortunately we saw no bears here, but clearly the "noise for bears" versus "quiet for avalanche" contro­versy was becoming less academic.

      The Long Hill psychologically ends at The Scales. Here the professional packers downed and reweighed their loads, and demanded higher rates from the richer stampeders. They chose a very good place to do this because at The Scales the goldrushers got their first view of the notorious climb to the summit known as the Golden Stairs. The average person even now gets the first impression that the Stairs are too steep and that they would willingly pay for someone to carry them over, or at least carry their load for them. In the long winter of 1898, the Golden Stairs were snow covered and all day and every day the weather was not too dreadful, a line of several hun­dred ant like men climbed almost impercep­tibly slowly up the 45 degree slope. A series of cable tramways later took many loads up but even in 1898 the cost was over $100 dol­lars for a typical stampeder's load; beyond the means of most. The tramways were demolished after the railway opened in 1899. The fallen cables from these tramways are still there and are now recommended as guide lines to the summit in the frequent white outs that occur even in summer. The Golden Stairs formed the second section of the day's hike.

      The view of the Golden Stairs from The Scales is spectacular, rising to the left of the more obvious line which forms the dangerous Petterson pass, notorious for its unstable rocks. Even from half a mile away individual boulders in the scree which forms the Golden Stairs can be disting­uished.

      The first sight of the Golden Stairs excites all one's emotions; awe tinged with fear, ela­tion at the barren beauty, sympathy for the immense suffering in the past, respect for the heroism and strength of some of the packers, relief that the greatest challenge is finally in your sights. Half a mile long, 800 feet up, 40 to 60 minutes for typical climbers. To reach it from The Scales was a ten minute relatively level walk over snow, some of it was even downhill. The weather showed signs of closing in: we had to press on without the rest we all assumed we would take. Also our friends were ahead, already on the Stairs and seemed to be going up very rapidly. Perhaps it was not as difficult as reputed. Suddenly we were there, dare I say it, at the foot of The Stairs. The first rocks were man sized and we had to bend our necks sharply backwards to see over them. It was a long reach from rock to rock and all seemed vertical. The first fifty, perhaps hun­dred feet were climbed on euphoria and adrenaline then the tiredness hit just as the rocks got smaller and less stable but just as steep. The wet made them slippery but not as bad as we feared. For the next 500 feet up, it was steady rock climbing over anything from shale to huge boulders; our packs were getting stea­dily heavier and trying to upset our balance.

      Each foothold had to be tested for stability, because many stones teeter tottered and could twist an ankle or cause us to fall. The boul­ders were too stable to fall downhill so we were not at risk from falling rocks dislodged by climbers above us. Some more young hikers easily passed us. Still we made good progress and were actually enjoying it. Tom pointed out a rusty shovel off the obvious part of the trail. It had probably been there for ninety years, dropped by an exhausted '98er and buried each year in the 60 or more feet of snow that fall each winter. I grasped a tram­way cable for help on a steep bit. It was still lying on the rocks where it fell when the hoists were demolished. We experienced a confusing mixture of ecstasy and fatigue. You look down; you see you have come a long way up. You look up, it seems less far. As if on cue, a Webster girl, probably Marie, who is doing the trail for her second time and who has a wicked sense of humour, called us from way above, "You are not even half way there yet." We remembered the false summit a few min­utes from the top. The rocks suddenly became snow covered with hundreds of footsteps tramping a furrow upwards. Now this was more like the real thing. We could relive the winter conditions of 1898, although of course we only had to climb the stairs once. Summer climbing is actually considered more difficult than the steady ascent of the steps hacked in the snow in the main gold rush. The pass got nar­rower, back to rocks and steeper again. Amid the rocks was a rusty nineteenth century gasoline engine, older than on any American car and bigger. It pow­ered one of the cable hoists and looked as if, with cleaning, it would still work. Then back to snow again on the slightly shallower bits and back to rocks again until the pass finally narrowed to only six foot wide. A few feet above and to each side of us, we glimpsed a large cairn and a cross. The sum­mit. Flat for a few feet, then the world sud­denly expanded into a smooth snow field stre­tching downhill to Crater Lake 500 feet below, and on as far as you can see. The hills to the sides were lost in clouds.

      There is a Canadian warden's hut and a shelter for exhausted climbers just over the summit. Canada has Wardens to show we are different from America which has Rangers. We realized it was still raining quite hard but we were above the clouds both literally and metaphorically. It's corny but we felt on top of the world. In reality we were at 3600 feet and the surrounding snow covered peaks reach to 6000 feet. The avalanche warnings may not be silly after all but we doubted that any bears would be daft enough to make the climb. It would be safer to be quiet during the third section ahead of us, four miles downhill.

      The summit shelter was soon full of happy but wet people showing no inhibitions as they changed into warm dry clothes. We ate our lunch and listened to stories of each others' tough endeavours, and of their awe (Thank God nobody said awesome). Jo visited the toilet hut several yards away and returned complaining that the step up to the door was so high that it needed a bigger stretch than anything she had encountered on the Golden Stairs.  We saw signs that the drinking water source near the summit had become polluted with oil and that no water was safe until Cra­ter Lake. An accident no doubt but it brought home to us yet again that man is his own worst enemy and he can destroy anything.

       Most hikers intended going beyond Happy Camp, our planned des­tination, because it is supposed to be a poor site, very exposed and with no shelter. Some would go to Deep Lake a further 2.5 miles, also without shelter but not so exposed and others, fitter and younger, talked of nearly six more miles to Lindeman City. We were already very tired and felt depressed at the thought of just the next four miles to Happy Camp which still seemed a long way away. The redeeming fact was that Happy Camp is about 700 feet down­hill but reaching Deep Lake required an addi­tional 400 foot climb after Happy Camp. Would the better camp compensate for the additional fatigue?

      The pass is a watershed as well as an int­ernational border. At the pass, snow, falling on Canada eventually melts. Its water flows through Crater Lake and Morrow Lake, through several small creeks and lakes paralleled by the trail, through a deep canyon into Lake Lindeman, on to Lake Bennett, past Car­cross, then Marsh Lake, into the Yukon River, onwards North past Whitehorse, then over 400 miles to Dawson, into Alaska, and after crossing the Arctic Circle, flows back South again and final­ly West until it reaches the Bering Strait and the Pacific. Its route will take it over two tho­usand miles. Similar snow falling only a few feet away on the USA side, melts, runs into the Taiya and reaches the Lynn Canal inlet of the Pacific in only 13 miles.

      A final look around before we left. We tried to imagine this area as it must have looked in 1898, almost completely covered by cached goods, each pile slowly getting larger with every journey up the Golden Stairs. Over seventy feet of snow fell in 1898 so the caches were continually being buried. A small heroic and greatly respected contingent of Mounties coped with the situation from a small hut at the summit and from a few tents down on Crater Lake. They collected customs fees, acted as doctors, mail men, advisors and coun­sellors in addition to their normal law and order duties. Most stampeders were pleased to reach Canada despite the customs duties after lawless America.

      We finally left the summit about noon, walking fast downhill to avoid getting cold, past Stone Crib, and on towards the still part­ly frozen Crater Lake, with mental images of the stampeders careering down on sail pow­ered toboggans, exultant that their main ordeal was over. We had to walk over the huge snow field and climb well above the lake but the goldrushers could continue their tob­oggan sail a mile or more on the flat lake surface. We trudged along, a couple hundred feet apart, ostensibly because of possible ava­lanches, but in reality because of our different tiredness.  I felt an intense desire to be alone with my thoughts. At one time we were out of sight of each other because of the mist and cloud but hesitated to shout. The snow stretched way up above us in a steady slope on either side until it disappeared into the mist. Strangely the risk of avalanches seemed remote. In some places long rocky outcrops protected us from poss­ible danger but in other places we would have been vulnerable if the snow conditions had been unsafe.

      We walked mainly on snow high above Crater Lake and then descended to the smaller Mor­row Lake. Some ice remained in the crystal clear water, white where exposed, but swim­ming pool blue beneath the surface with shapes like the hull of a graceful yacht, tens of feet long. Inland icebergs. We later estimated we travelled over two and a half miles on hard packed snow with short inter­vals on rocks and only saw the last of the snowfield just before Happy Camp. The woman ranger in Skagway was right about the snow. In places we smelt the heather, already blooming where the snow had melted. The edges of the snow sometimes formed almost vertical walls several feet thick with thousands of shallow dimples. On one occasion we had to climb down a snow wall.

      Suddenly we caught up a group of four slow moving hikers. One was the old lady who went up to the top yesterday. We talked brief­ly as we passed to Carla, one of two pro­fessional guides in the party and learned that they stayed with the Warden at the peak over­night. The old lady was walking steadily over the snow, with a stick and a light pack and seemed to appreciate our encouragement.

      The scenery was magnificent as far as we could see but Jo especially was now very tired and we were wet again because of the incess­ant drizzle and the condensation inside our rain gear. I thought privately we should go on to Deep Lake camp but knew that it would be hard to convince Jo. As we approached an exposed valley and what must be Happy Camp we realized two things; the wind had died down and a wooden shelter had recently been built. The site was at about 2900 feet elevation near the bed of the shal­low but now overflowing Coltsfoot Creek which flows between Crater Lake and Long Lake. We went into the shelter to warm up and met the Warden who was on his way through. He told us that the shelter was put up last year. We took off our wet outer clothes and ate a snack. We made a very easy unanimous deci­sion to stay overnight. Within an hour there were about twenty damp campers in the unheated 10 by 15 foot shelter and twenty sets of damp clothes optimistically hung up to dry. We again met up with our friends the Web­ster party and swapped reminiscences; it was a full three hours since we last talked to them at the summit. They had had some excit­ement. A large rock rolled down the hill in front of them, bringing with it some snow but fortunately not a serious avalanche.

      The old lady, Patricia, stopped in for a warm up and a cup of tea and we had quite a long chat with her. Carla had rushed ahead to get it ready in advance; Patricia deserved some cosseting. It was her third trip over the Chilkoot. She spoke with a glorious Louisiana accent and was with her daughter whose first trip it was. After an hour or so, she continued on to Deep Lake as she was behind schedule. A very quiet man, the other professional guide, whose name we never discovered, kept in the background carrying his and most of Patricia's equipment.

      Some people are never happy. An exper­ienced older English hiker we had first seen at the summit, complained bitterly about the clouds at the top spoiling the view. He wouldn't have made the climb if he had known the weather was so often bad. Nobody had told him. Another hiker, a real grouch, father of an extended family of five adults, complained if anyone lit their stove in the shelter to warm up or even to prepare a meal.  Later he seemed happy to have his stove on when he wanted his meal! He ordered me to go out of the shelter when I started to replace an empty butane cylinder on our camping stove, pre­sumably because of the fumes. If only the river outside was deeper and I was less tired.

      There were no trees at Happy Camp, and we saw no bears, so unfortunately we could not use the grouch to check Tom's method of distinguish­ing between Brown and Black bears. There were no bear poles but the shel­ter had a huge food store with neat wooden shelves. We just hoped nobody would leave the door open, otherwise there would be happy bears and lots of unhappy campers at breakfast time.

      The rain had clearly set in for the day. Tom and I went out and erected the tent on the best site but this entailed getting the inner tent wet as the pseudo geodetic design pre­cluded putting up the fly first, before the inner. Our old traditional ridge tent allowed this - such is progress. We noted that some of the $600 super light tents also got the inner wet during erection. We unpacked and Tom and I found that some of our spare clothes were damp. Our packs were not completely waterproof and through inexperience, I had not thought to stow my spare clothes in the plastic bags we brought with us for this very pur­pose. Jo and I got in our sleeping bags to rest and warm up and Tom went back to the shel­ter to try to dry his clothes and chat. The evening meal was perfect, prepared by Tom as a complete surprise, even though I cannot remember exactly what it was. The first indi­cation of our treat came when he woke us up with hot soup. He called us to the shelter when the meal was half prepared. He made a great show to everyone of not being able to read Jo's cryptic cooking instructions and was imp­ressively coached by Kim and the rest of the Webster gang while we sat eagerly await­ing the results and feeling considerably warmed by our sleep and his kind actions.  He and Kim formed a comedy routine worthy of Holly­wood. Kim, who professed to know little about cooking, appeared to have a great sense of timing and what garnishes to add. Tom will never understand how much we appreciated that meal. We knew that the memories of today's hike and that we had all accomplished something special would remain with us for ever. Our resolve to have an early night was hastened by two, otherwise pleasant women in the grouch family starting to sing, in fairly close but variable harmony, some 1950's pop songs and, even worse, jolly girl guide camp­ing songs. They even sang the clean words. I suspect Len who sang considerably better, later tried to steer them towards less whole­some versions but I expect the grouch objected. It was time to leave the shelter. We deserved a good night's sleep for our efforts - the hardest day was over in terms of feet climbed. We also knew that we could still not be complacent; the next, our final day would require us to walk twelve and a half miles. Our maximum to date had been eight. It blew strongly during the night and the relatively dry inner and wet fly sheets kept touching but no water entered and our weight held the tent down so we slept blissfully except for Tom who was cold because his sleeping bag had got wet in places.

      The next morning, Sunday, was drier when we prepared to go. This was our final day on the trail. We took down the tent trying to keep the sodden fly from the dry inner and the dry inner walls from the wet base, while keeping our belongings dry. We said goodbye to the Webster gang. Their plans only needed them to get to Bennett for the following day's midday back­packers' special train, whereas we were booked on the early morning train. They planned to stay at either Lindeman or Bare Loon site overnight and go on to Bennett the second morning. Was this wimpishness or good planning on their part? They had become good friends and we have exchanged addresses, or rather business cards; a sign of this modern age.

      Our trail map showed an overall drop of nearly 800 feet to Lindeman but we were not convinced of its accuracy as the trail immediately climbed about 300 feet up a rocky outcrop and appeared to keep this height for a long way. The trail, well above the tree line was defined as usual by the small stone cairns we had grown to love and appre­ciate. We descended to the shores of a narrow small lake in Coltsfoot ravine, crossed lots of shallow but swollen rivulets on stepping stones, some barely above the water level, most just underwater, (the woman ranger in Skagway was right yet again) and then, back up a couple hundred feet and along the top of a long rocky hill for a mile or so. We event­ually saw Deep Lake camp far below us after rounding a rocky outcrop and enjoyed the sudden steep descent to the camp situated where the river tumbles out of the lake. A short pack break, some trail mix, our water bottles replenished, we started off again for Lake Lindeman our lunch stop. Finally the trail became easier as we descended out of the sub-Arctic tundra and back below the tree line.  We passed a cheerful Canadian trail warden on her patrol to the summit. The trail runs high above a narrow canyon through which the river, now called Moose Creek cascades from Deep Lake into Lake Lindeman, a drop of 500 feet in 2 miles. 

      Jo chose this part of the trail to fall flat on the ground, face down, pack up. A hidden root sprang up and tripped her. We lifted her up by her backpack, her face muddied, to prevent our remaining meals, which were in her pack, from falling into the chasm. A bloodied nose and a scraped chin guaranteed her story for several days. She was never in any danger, but over the years she will no doubt develop this story into a real epic. She will add a few bears, maybe an avalanche, frostbite, man eating mosquitoes, a five hundred foot preci­pice, being pulled up by rope from the brink of the chasm, being carried on our backs for thirty miles, nearly starving, etc.

      We caught occasional spectacular views of the water crashing down through the rapids sev­eral hundred feet below us. Also five hun­dred feet lower and nearly three miles on we entered Lindeman City campsite. The camp is located near where Moose Creek canyon empties into the southern end of the lake.

      Lindeman Camp is big, spread over sev­eral acres, with several large semi permanent ridge tents, surprisingly not full of Indian and Northern Affairs sociologists, but full of guides, wardens, deputy wardens, assistant deputy wardens, trail keepers etc, all apparently with their families judging by the children. Large heavy duty canvas tents housing stores, exhibitions, and offices, looked surprisingly like the originals used for hotels, restaurants, and bars in the goldrush days. It was almost a modern tent city.  This was the first site where it was easy to imagine that it was once a city of 4000 transients, all desperately making boats. For a start the site is relatively flat, sandy and sparse; all our other sites and tent cities had been in rocky terrain.

      There are two old tradi­tional log built lodges. We stopped at one of these for lunch - and there once again met Patricia who had already come down from Deep Lake camp. The weather was now beautiful and clear if not very hot and we took the opportunity to dry our wet things either outside the shelter, or inside, over the old iron stove which we lit and was later used by Patricia's guide for cooking. We had a very pleasant hour's chat with Patricia and her daughter, Darcy, and came away with even more respect for her endeavours and for her as a person. Her father had been one of the original gold­rushers who went over the Chil­koot. He was moderately successful with claims on one of the other Yukon gold rich areas North of Lake Laberge I believe, but later moved out­side (that is, he left the Yukon in Yukon talk) to a variety of other adventur­ous jobs all over the world. She had decided, at 70, to try to understand what her father had exper­ienced, by crossing the Chilkoot herself. She had done it each year since and this was her third time. She was captivated by the lure of the trail. She dressed in good qual­ity, modern, but not outrage­ously trendy hik­ing clothes but still wore her uplifted and slightly fancy frame glasses, and a little make up. She was going on to see if she could locate her father's claims even though they had long been sold. Long term she had this decade planned but her eighties and nineties were still "open". Patricia told us about her "prissy" friends in Louisiana who thought she really should have gone on one of the Cruises as what she was doing was not lady­like. (She really despised the whole idea of cruises and bus tours). One of her friends asked her what she did about showers. Patricia said that the woman really wanted to ask about toilets, but could not bring herself to be so indelicate. She told the shocked lady she didn't shower on the trail for several day, nobody else did, and nobody noticed. Patricia is now considered to be really odd down in Baton Rouge by all the fading southern belles and aspiring Daughters of the American Rev­olution. It was touching to see the concern for her mixed with pride on her daughter's face.

      As we started to leave Lindeman an hour or so after lunch, we were waylaid by a cheer­ful guide from Ottawa U, a Whitehorse resi­dent, almost Karen Hall's double, eager to show us around Lindeman and her speciality, a tented photographic centre full of beautiful old pictures of the goldrush, many of which I had not seen before. The exhibition was well worth the delay. We also spent a few minutes in the goldrush cemetery on a nearby high spot overlooking the lake and the camp. Lake Lindeman is about six miles long with a short but dangerous mile long river linking it to Lake Bennett at its North end. Bennett town is at the South end of Lake Bennett close to the estuary.

      The survey map shows an easy level trail along the side of Lake Lindeman to Bennett. Soon however we were climbing up about three hun­dred feet above the lake, exhausted and tak­ing frequent pack breaks. The parks staff had made several simple seats on the side of the trail, a plank across a couple of rocks. Each seat afforded a welcome break and normally a spectacular view along the length of the green glacier fed lake. Our packs became heavier and heavier but slowly we moved along the length of the lake although we never seemed to lose any height. I predicted we would arrive at Bare Loon Lake camp at a specific time and sure enough we saw signs for a toilet and to tent sites. This gave us a position fix and uplifted our spirits as we only had 4 miles to go, all downhill. Over twenty minutes later we saw a lake and an obvious campsite ahead. The sign said we were at Bare Loon Lake. Despair. We had not gone as far as we had hoped. However we soon realized that this was a new camp site and it really was further along than the camp on the map. We were passed by a couple of young hikers who turned off onto the cut off path to the road. This route misses the final camp at Lake Ben­nett and shortens the trail by 3 miles. If we had taken that path we would always have felt that we had cheated and we would have missed Bennett which has outstanding histori­cal interest.

      The last three miles seemed hard. We were very tired but could see that we were steadily nearing the North end of Lake Lind­eman and we thought we had only a simple downhill section parallel to the short river and we would be at the trail's end. It seemed to go on and on. As we descended we reached an undulating well beaten section, where the trail turned to deep sand and every step was difficult. The last mile seemed to go for ever and was by far our slowest on the flat. The second wind you often get at the end of a running race that gives you the power for a final sprint to the line never came. We passed one or two cabins, obviously still occupied. We occa­sionally glimpsed the railway which now ran parallel to us and only a hundred or so yards away and close to the White Pass trail which also converges on Bennett. Suddenly we were on the final steep slope down to the church and the brown water lake. We had made it. It was just after seven in the evening.

      But where was the campsite? We saw no tents. We downed packs and spread out look­ing for it. Finally we found it but only after I had gone way back up the final hill looking for a sign I thought I had seen. We each lost each other. The camp was poorly marked, right on the lake shore, near the church. We could later pinpoint exactly where we pitched our tent on the photographic post­cards we bought of Bennett town in 1898. We were the first and only campers that night, just the three of us compared with the 20,000 who were forced to stay several weeks.

      During this time they built boats, varying from the crudest log rafts to ten man scows. Many of the prospectors made their boats on Lake Lindeman but those who did faced the short but dangerous trip down the rapids between Lindeman and Bennett Lake. Many floundered, their boats dashed to pieces in the rapids. Most folk were wiser and built their boats on Lake Bennett. The stampeders whipsawed so much lumber that the hills round both lakes were stripped. Having built their boats, they then were forced to wait until the ice broke up before they could leave in a mad race to Dawson and, they hoped, fortune.

      The sandy ground was dry, the camp site spacious, two pit toilets for the three of us, but there was no shelter and no bear poles. After supper we decided that we should use our rope and a tree to protect our remaining food against bears in the proper manner. We tied the rope round a stone, pitched it suc­cessfully over a high branch at the second attempt. Easy. Where were you, Len and the girls, when we needed you to crow at? Actual­ly Bennett did not look like bear country but you never know.

      Goldrush artifacts were everywhere, in the undergrowth, on the beach and right up to the edges of the prepared sites for our tents. We finally succumbed and took two small items, both were actually in the lake in several inches of water and so, our rationale went, about to be lost for ever. Later we realized that this may have been the first time the objects had been in water as the lake was at a record high. One was a very corroded square section nail probably dropped while a boat was being built and the other was a brown glass medicine bottle stopper. We now regret taking them but they will always be treasured.

      Bennett now consists of a railway station, a couple of half hidden trailers for railway staff, sidings, the church, long since disused but now being restored and one or two cabins. The church complete with spire was built in the spring of 1898 by goldrushers waiting for the ice to break up. It is unpainted, glassless but in otherwise quite good repair. Bennett was the highest navigable point up the Yukon River system. Boats could steam from Bennett to the Bering sea at the Yukon's mouth over two thousand miles away.  As cargo steamers could dock and load at Bennett, the railway naturally aimed first for Bennett after crossing the White Pass. It generated substantial rev­enues while awaiting completion of the track to Whitehorse. The rail line comes in from the South and then runs along the east­ern shore for the entire length of Lake Ben­nett until it reaches Carcross. The modern road misses Bennett because it was built along the West side of the Windy Arm branch of Tagish Lake parallel to but several miles East of Lake Bennett. Bennett town has therefore been abandoned by time and most tourists.

      Monday morning, we struck camp, ate a leisurely breakfast and took our last look around. We heard an engine low over the lake and a float plane circled, landed and taxied close to the station. Two men got out and rushed off to the church. The third, the stocky bearded pilot, hung around the station. We donned our packs almost for the last time and walked the two hundred yards to the station. A lone hiker appeared from nowhere, he had come down the railway line and hoped to take a train on to Carcross and Whitehorse. He is French. The backpackers' special Casey rail motor car arrived driven by the man pictured in the souvenir book we later buy. He is French Canadian. The aston­ished French backpacker soon learned, in close to his native tongue, that the train only goes the way he had come. He elected to go to Fraser on the train and try his luck for Carcross from there. Tom got talking to the pilot, a typical Northern bush pilot based in Whitehorse and owner of a small fishing camp. He told us he had brought two govern­ment people to Bennett to measure the church as part of the restoration program. He hates all governments with a passion so we only reluctantly admitted we are from Ottawa. He recounted with scorn of the big new gov­ernment building in central Whitehorse which was being excavated during our first visit. The site was originally the main downtown parking lot, convenient for everyone and adequate in size. The citizens complained that their parking would be lost and street congestion would be increased by all the new workers. All cities seem to have the same problem. The government's response was to promise underground parking which it built and imme­diately filled with Government vehicles. The government employees and normal citizens still had to park elsewhere. The obvious sol­ution would have been to build the new offices near the homes of the Government workers, living in the Rosedale or Kanata-like housing suburbs now being developed along the Alaska highway which bypasses downtown Whitehorse. But that would have been too sensible, the pilot explained.

      The station at Bennett has several sidings full of flat bed rail cars built during the White Pass and Yukon Railway's pioneering use of containers. These cars became redundant when the railway lost its ore haul­ing contract with Faro mine and was forced to close most of its activities in 1982. The station was well maintained but used only for staff activities and the backpackers' special trains. These use small gasoline pow­ered rail jitneys (called Casey Rail motor cars) similar to those used on all railways by track maintenance staff. The driver hitched the orange Casey car to the trailer car in which we rode and a couple of open wagons for the backpacks. All vehicles have four wheels, most with no brakes, and the train trundles along at about 20 miles per hour. Twice daily it takes backpackers from Bennett to Fraser along an otherwise closed section of track.

      Even though both Bennett and Fraser are in British Columbia (The Yukon, BC and Alaskan borders are still nearly as confusing today as they were in 1898) the train runs on Alaska time, one hour behind BC time. This was not mentioned in the railway brochure or on our tickets and we had based our plans assuming the train ran on BC time. We first heard rumours on the trail that the train ran on Alaska time not Yukon time. Reading the very well painted timetable on Bennett station the night before had confirmed our worst suspicions. This caused us considerable worry until we realized there was nothing we could do except wait, get on the train and see. The bonus was that we did not have to get up so early.

      The Sourdough shuttle van we had booked is scheduled to leave Fraser at 10:30 Yukon time daily. The train is scheduled to arrive at Fraser at 9:45, perfect if Yukon time but pot­entially disastrous when Alaska time. Our only hopes were that the Sourdough shuttle was late; or that the brochure is correct when it says the shuttle meets the backpacker's train but wrong in its published times. There was nothing we could do if the shuttle had gone, short of hitchhiking, as it and the bus ran only once daily, both in the early morning.

      The train left Bennett on time, picking up several backpackers seemingly at random on its 15 mile run. It ambled along, then stopped after crossing the road at Log Cabin, and dropped off some backpackers at their car. We remembered our previous visit to Log Cabin, where our industrial archaeology guides including Karl Gurcke took us to the ruins of the NWMP customs headquarters for the White Pass trail, where we first saw the many abandoned artifacts and where I first really appreciated the drama of the Trail of '98. The train closely followed the shores of Shallow Lake and Lake Bernard for three or four miles between Log Cabin and Fraser. We could often see the road above us. We didn't know whether to look at the beautiful lake side scenery or at the road and hope not to see the shuttle van already on its way to Carcross. A cross fox stood its ground, right by the railside, just as we approached Fraser.

      The same friendly customs officer welcomed us back to Canada. He was not interested in any formalities and he told us the shuttle has not yet arrived. We chatted outside. He definitely did not want to work at Toronto International Airport. Along came the shuttle; after a few minor hassles about the cost we were on our way to Car­cross at the North end of Lake Bennett. We met a couple of the yellow huge ore trucks en route to Skagway, which run every 40 minutes throughout the year and are the main justifi­cation for the new all season Klondike high­way between Skagway and Whitehorse. Their need for good roads opened up the area to tourism but practically killed the railway. We passed the remains of the concentrating sheds of Venus mine. The mine itself is high up the mountains­ide. The silver ore was sent down to be processed by an overhead bucket tramway. The ore was concentrated using gravity so that the sheds are built on a 45 degree slope on the lake shore. The dilapi­dated wooden and sheet steel concentrator buildings look exactly like a full size version of those featured in the better narrow gauge model mountain railroads.

      We arrived in Carcross within the hour and confirmed with the shuttle driver that we would be picked up at the same time next day to continue on to Whitehorse. My desire for a Carcross ice cream was not as strong as that for a cool beer when the final cru­nch came.

      The name, Carcross, a corrupted form of Caribou Crossing explains why the town devel­oped where it did. Lake Bennett narrows to about 50 yards and joins with Nares Lake, a branch of Tagish Lake. The narrows are shal­low so that Caribou could easily cross. All the goldrush boats from Bennett passed through the narrows on their way to Tagish Lake and then to the Yukon via the short Tagish River and Marsh Lake. Carcross was the ideal cross­ing place both for the White Pass and Yukon Railway, and fifty years later for the road. It became a transshipment point for ores and miners from the goldfields near Atlin on their way by train to Skagway. A short two mile portage railway was built to avoid the Tagish River rapids. This railway no longer exists but one of its two locomotives, the Duchess is now on display in Carcross.

      We knew that staying at the Caribou Hotel in Carcross would be an experience. We saw it on our first trip, and learned it was built in 1910, was largely as original and it certainly looked characterful. When I phoned from Ottawa for reservations an Australian woman from Mel­bourne, eventually answered the phone, warned me about the lack of individ­ual wash­rooms "Its a bit primitive" and seemed surpris­ed we wanted rooms. She didn't need a credit card number, didn't have any paper handy to record our reservations, but would remember our names and tell the person who took bookings. The reservations system seemed a bit tenuous so on our way from Whitehorse to Skagway before our hike, I called in the hotel during our short stop. It is a square no nonsense building with wooden sides and a flat roof. With its three storeys it dominated Carcross. No Australian, no rec­eption desk but a Polish lady in the dining room said I must go to the bar to discuss reservations, but it wasn't open. She then said the owner must be in the post office and I should go there to see if our reservations were OK. The post office is behind the hotel and it has a new red and white Canada Post sign outside almost as big as the building itself; quite a small sign actual­ly. I went in and there was nobody there but a lady behind the counter. Yes, she owned the hotel, and yes our bookings were OK; she remembered them. We may have been the only bookings they ever had. If so it's a pity because the hotel is delightful. Quaint, primi­tive, dilapi­dated, but delightful.

      We arrived for our stay a few minutes before noon. We must go to the bar for reser­vations said the Polish lady in the restaurant - I had heard this somewhere before - soon I would be going to the post office. But no, things were slightly different this time and there was a minor problem. A barmaid, not the Postmistress and not Australian, was in the bar but said they were closed till noon. We never saw any Australian in Carcross but our Whitehorse Hotel had two on staff, a friendly receptionist and a waitress. Do Australians migrate round the Yukon like caribou? We told the barmaid we had reservations. "Oh that's dif­ferent. Put your things on the billiard table. Do you want a drink?" A reply worthy of an Australian. She looked into a small pocket diary and sure enough we were in it. We had our beers. They were so good they were almost worth the wait. She gave us our room keys, three for one room, two for the other. One key was supposed to be for the outside door, one for the inner door separating the entrance lobby from the stairs up to the guest rooms, and one for the individual rooms. We saw another possible problem here as we were already one key down. Never mind, we are already in the hotel and we did not intend to be out late so we would ignore the outer door. Another more real problem. None of the five keys opened the door at the foot of the stairs. The barmaid disappeared, opened the door from the other side having got round by some mysterious route, and up we went. Our rooms, we were informed, were on the third floor, numbers 20 and 23. As we reached the landing on the second floor I saw a door with 21 on it in neat metal numbers. But this was not the correct floor. A door led to the next flight of stairs. "Please leave open to let the heat get up." a sign read. We climbed the stairs (we are used to climbing by now) and walked along the third floor corridor; 20 and 23 were there with numbers hand written in masking tape on the doors. The keys worked and the rooms fitted their descriptions. There was a toilet and shower on our floor at the other end of the corridor. We passed rooms 11 and 14 and one or two others without numbers. The toilet worked but a hand scribbled sign said it was tired and please give it time. The bathroom door once closed, required most of our strength to open. Jo gave up trying to close it and posted me as a sentry. We explored the second floor. We found a random selection of room numbers in the tens and twenties including another room 20. The numbers seemed to be in no logical order except that the tens seem to be to the left of the stairs and the twenties to the right on each floor. The second floor had a big old tub in its one operating bathroom. We enjoyed our first baths in almost a week, apart from my short dip when I fell through the snow just before the summit.

      The beds were comfortable, Tom had the choice of two and Jo and I could chose between three. The hotel was poorly insulated and everywhere the owner was trying to improve it. Our room windows had translu­cent sheet polyethylene over the frames in a desperate attempt at double glazing. I suspect that as it was a historic building, major modifi­cations may not have been allowed. Also, as the owner doubled as postmistress, the money for improvements may not have been avail­able. We were warm but in the night Tom resorted to his sleeping bag. The rooms were $40 and $35 per night. Did we like it? Yes, we loved it. The polyesters and Patricia's friends would have hated it. Cynically, we could say that it was a half way stage in our return to civilization. I have read that the hotel was built and owned by Tagish Charlie, one of the three original gold discoverers in the Klondike and that he drowned many years later by falling off the railway bridge. We saw nothing in the hotel to confirm or deny this story. If he died, as rumoured, through drink­ing beer in his hotel, I can understand. The beer was excellent. Jo found they stocked a very dry BC cider so she was happy.

      The Caribou Hotel has a reputation for good simple food. We agree and had three meals there during our day in Carcross. The food is mainly the type you add ketchup to, rather than the type where you wonder which cutlery to use. It is the best Polish restaurant in Carcross and the perogies and cabbage rolls were excellent. It is actually the only restaurant in Carcross because Carcross is so small.

      Downtown Carcross is worth describing. Located at the far end of a fifty yard long dead end street, it has the 3 storey hotel as its main landmark. Opposite the hotel, it has an impressive White Pass and Yukon Railway station - converted into a visitor centre as this part of the railway is now abandoned. It has a bar - in the hotel. It has a restaurant - in the hotel. It has a post office - run by the owner of the hotel. There is the Matthew Watson General Store - next door to the hotel. It has a small boat yard. There is the entrance to a large parking lot normally half full of recreational vehicles and tour buses. Three transport exhibits form an outdoor museum display consisting of the very small old portage rail­way locomotive, the Duchess; a WP and Y stage coach and the remains of the stern­wheelerTushi, tragically torched just before our 1990 visit. One end of Downtown is the closed railway bridge, the other end is the road out. That's it. Once the Tushi dominated Carcross but alas no more. Old photos show the Tushi taller than the Hotel. It is now just a collection of rusty iron machinery and a part of its wooden bow. Two short streets lead away from downtown to a small residential area with a volunteer fire hall, modern health building, library, school, a small beach and a boat landing with a view down the length of Lake Ben­nett. The residential area has some closed cabins once souvenir outlets, as well as small houses, most in need of paint. Local traffic is mainly the hotel owner - post mistress driving her pickup between the hotel and the post office twenty yards away, with the occasional side trip to her home, another fifty yards away. The major activity except when the tour buses are in, seems to be shipping out empty bottles from the hotel onto a pick up truck.  A line of shacks on the opp­osite side of the narrows occupied by Indians, forms the rest of old Carcross. If Carcross follows the lead of Whitehorse, a large gov­ernment office will soon be built in the parking lot.

      The railway bridge just beyond the station, a substantial steel truss structure, its rail tracks boarded with wooden planks, provides the main dry access for the Indian houses across the narrows. It was built as a swing bridge but rarely opened. Its low clearance prevents access by any but the smallest boats from Nares to Bennett Lakes. There is also a rickety foot bridge.  We later learned from one couple we met on the trail and again in Whitehorse, that they were to have been picked up by a friend's boat at Bennett but the water level was too high for the boat to get under the Carcross bridge.

      Carcross has a bypass. The Klondike high­way (Yukon No.2) crosses the narrows about 300 yards from the railway bridge and a spur road from the highway leads into down­town Carcross and another goes to the Indian settlement across the narrows. There is a police station on this spur road and two churches, a couple of other buildings but little else. A gas service station and a typical mod­ern small conveni­ence store with coin oper­ated laundry are on the main road. There is a cut off road (Yukon No.8) going via Tagish to the Alaska highway (Yukon No.1) and that is about it.

       We still had only the clothes we lugged over the trail. Our clean clothes were in Whitehorse and we observed that some of the locals had stood notice­ably apart from us. We each bought new sweat­shirts at the Matthew Watson General Store. We used the coin-op to clean some clothes and dry off our wet ones. The bath and the fresh clothes felt good.

      The modern general store with laundromat in the suburbs should not be confused with Matthew Watson's General Store in downtown Carcross. Watson's store has been open for eighty years and is now a well run classy sou­venir shop combined with private museum. The shelves that customers can reach have souvenirs. Higher shelves and behind the counter display stock, boxes and products typical of the 1910 period which are not for sale. There were old weigh scales and an old cash register, and old advertisements. A young couple run the store with obvious pride and dedication. She makes home made muffins and cookies and hand crafted souvenirs from local materials and sells the splendid ice cream. I bought a pair of the softest moose skin moccasins, made in Carcross, and far cheaper than similar ones in Whitehorse air­port shop.

      While in the bar we were approached by an old resident, very drunk, claiming he was able to sell us a fishing lodge which we could have for $300,000, but really he wanted us to buy him a beer. If I was trying to sell a fishing lodge, I would buy the beer.

      Carcross appears to be a magnet for Har­ley Davidson motorcycles and their stereotype owners. At every meal we saw a different group of bikes with various state or provincial licence plates parked outside and HOGs (Harley Owners Group), their owners inside. The men were in their fifties, normally stout, in black leather, tattooed, black caps, hair in small ponytails. Probably off duty bankers. The women were mainly about the same age, sometimes flashy bottle blondes, of widely varying sizes but all dressed alike; multi zippered jackets and leather chaps or pants with the seat and front cut out, with jeans underneath. The chaps would have been kinky without the denim. None drank any alcohol and all were oddly respectable, quiet at table, polite to the wait­ress. One Hog had an older frail woman with him, perhaps seventy, most probably his mother, also blond and dressed the same. Her jacket zip was too tight for her to operate and he heaved it closed, practically lifting her off her feet before placing her on the bike. These were not Hells Angels but clearly a cult. They had biked over a thousand miles along the Alaska Highway to reach Carcross.

      Next day the shuttle van to Whitehorse arrived on time driven by a motherly type who proved to be an excellent driver and who, as a bonus, took us down a side road outside Whitehorse, so we could see Miles Canyon. Now somewhat tamed by the power dam, Miles Canyon was the site of so many boat disasters during the rush that the NWMPs insisted only registered and properly made boats could go through with a trained pilot and no women or children aboard. Our driver took us right to the Taku hotel. Splendid service even though it was expensive like everything in the Yukon.

      We got the same room as before and the bags we had left were immediately available, not lost in a closet somewhere. Different clean clothes which we eagerly put on.

      The rest of the day was devoted to eating and sightseeing. Tom toured the Klondike II Sternwheeler, built 1926, beautifully restored and now a National Historic site. The Klondike II was built originally as a freighter with some passengers on the Dawson route. One and a half days to Dawson, five to six days upstream back to Whitehorse. We went round the McBride Museum. The stuffed black bear looked much smaller than "our" bear, but the brown grizzly one looked much bigger. One of the local camping supply stores had a photo of a grizzly killed by arrow by one of its staff from 10 meters; it was esti­mated to be 1400 pounds.

      Tom treated us to seats at the local Frantic Follies, gay nineties show. It was almost exactly the same as the show we had seen two years earlier. I think we enjoyed it even more this time. Part of the fun is seeing the polyesters being herded in by the ever fussy tour guides to their reserved seats, which are actually roped off, and their constant attempts to escape to other seats. There used to be a TV program in Britain of sheep dog trials. It looked just the same. The show included comedians, musical turns, can-can girls, a parody of Robert Service's Cremation of Sam Mc­Gee, sketches of cabin fever, a grande dame singing flirtatious Edwardian era songs and pretending to make up to an old man drawn from the audience. He enjoyed himself and she had to contend with his wandering hands but I wondered if he was about to have a heart attack. I might also have had a heart attack if I was over seventy, suddenly brought on stage, had a beautiful, buxom woman sit on my lap, tickle me with feathers, and had to contend with her stage singing voice in my right ear. It was interesting to see teenagers laughing and thor­oughly enjoying the show.

      Next day was more sightseeing; Tom to the McBride, us to the Klondike II. We met the Websters in the bookshop and on several other occasions around town. We swapped stories. We met Patricia and daughter, Patricia now more formally dressed but still not looking like a polyester. We swapped stories. We met several other backpackers from the Chilkoot including a guy from Cali­fornia and his girlfriend from Juneau, whose names we never discovered. We swapped stories.

      Whitehorse is reputed to have some of the best restaurants in Canada. Its most famous is the No Pop Sandwich Shop which is an unpainted nondescript place that sells, yes, sandwiches. We had supper there on the first evening of our return, in an outside patio or rather a lean-to backing onto a parking lot. The sandwiches were excellent; Jo got her now usual cider and the beer was good. This place is a favourite with Whitehorse public servants for lunch. Upkeep must be almost zero and it gets lineups at lunchtime. There is gold in Whitehorse. After the sandwiches, Jo persuaded us to go on the Taku's restaurant where we had eaten on the first evening so that we could all have a one of her favour­ite brandy, ice and fruit cocktails. A repeat fruit cocktail seemed to be the main reason Jo wanted to get back to Whitehorse. After try­ing it, I can understand why.

      We breakfasted at the Taku the next mor­ning. The waitress with the tight pants and the super walk had survived her first week.

      The second evening we ate at the restaur­ant where we had taken Alex Barbour and Chris Andreae of the Industrial Archaeology Society two years earlier. This is a pretentious but good pizza house on an upper floor over a dentist's office. None of us felt like truly haut cuisine although that is possible in Whitehorse.

      Whitehorse is strange but addictive. It has everything crammed into one small city of twenty thousand. It is the centre for three levels of government, a frontier town, a tourist trap, and a regional supply centre. You see public servants dressed in their almost manda­tory three piece suits or blue blazers with highly polished shoes, just as in Ottawa; women power dressed in their Liz Clai­bournes; shop assistants in high heels next to trappers, miners and Indians in from the bush in their jeans, check shirts and dirty old base­ball caps; Indian youth who have adapted to town living; the hordes of polyestered Ethels venturing bravely to the next souvenir store; tired pensioners returning to the RV parks and contemplating another thousand miles either way along the Alaska Highway; truckers, so essential to Whitehorse, as virtually every­thing is hauled in; a few grizzled backpackers; and some normal people. Even the normal people tend to drive small four wheel drive trucks with loose dogs in the back as a token to frontier life.

      Whitehorse is developing fast; we noted many new build­ings in the two years since our previous visit. It is interesting looking back with Pierre Berton in his early book, The Mysterious North, where he describes the Whitehorse of 1948 following its rejuvenation and massive expan­sion after it became the major supply and administra­tion centre for the Alaska high­way. "The town that now greeted me, scat­tered along the river flats of volcanic ash, was a cluttered hodgepodge of war-time jerry-buil­d­ing - a wild melange of tar paper shacks, out­houses, bunkhouses, Quonset huts, corru­gated iron lean-tos, false fronted frame struc­tures, log cabins from an earlier day, a few trim bungalows, and a few square block houses disguised by imitation brick. . . This was the mess left by forty thousand construc­tion workers who had poured through Whitehorse to build the Alaska Highway." Some of this is still evident, but the city is now superficially much like any other, buildings rise higher, the newest shopping mall was eagerly awaiting its first Canadian Tire superstore to open within the week. No Sears yet, more surprisingly no Hudson's Bay Store.

      The area is technical­ly in a desert with little annual precipitation (in contrast to the Chilkoot Pass only eighty miles away with sixty feet of snow dusty and yellow with sand. Plants grow profusely in gardens, for piped water for hoses is abun­dant, the climate is moderate to warm, and daylight growing hours in the sum­mer are long. Jo was envious, but what of the winters? Locals say the climate is like Ottawa's but with much less snow and only five hours of light.

      The Barcelona Olympics had begun while we were on the trail and it proved impossible to resist watching some on our return to Whitehorse. Fortunately the coverage by CTV was dreadful and we found it easy to turn off the TV. The last day involved final prepara­tions for travel and a little shopping. We crossed the new road bridge over the Yukon and walked along its bank, by the once fear­some and now only partly tamed rapids; so close again to history. Boats were wrecked where we stood. Others survived and their owners stopped downstream where Whitehorse is now, to dry out their pos­ses­sions, thanking providence for their survival. We marvelled at the speed of the river. We would have had to sustain a fast jog to keep up with a drifting boat. We watched a white water kayaker just able to hold his boat still, facing upstream in a stretch of rapids.

      The new bridge, fixed, with a low span marked a psychological turning point for the Yukon. Large boats like sternwheelers, could never again pass through Whitehorse. The river was cut in two. Water transport other than in small boats for pleasure was dead. The railway had closed. Whitehorse lived for its first fifty years by water and rail. Since the war and the Alaska Highway, it lives by road and air.

      One mundane purpose of our walk river­side was to empty the last cylinder of butane from our stove. We decided that letting butane onto the air was better than burning it and forming carbon dioxide. It isn't simple these days trying to be an environmentalist. Next day, the diligent Canadian Airlines ticket agent asked us twice if we had any fuel in our baggage before he would accept our packs so it was fortunate we had got rid of it. We had already left one unopened cylinder in a shelter on the trail as a gift for a later needy camper.

      The Taku restaurant was too crowded in the morning, so we went over the road for breakfast. Here the waitress was in her sixties, grand-motherly, and she introduced us to Lee who always ate there. Lee had retired from the White Pass railway after 33 years work in the pipeline division and obviously wanted to chat, that is reminisce, for a long time, and it would have been interesting, but unfortunately we had to move on. Back to Ottawa.

      The plane flight was uneventful apart from the spectacular views we got of the Coastal Range mountains looking East and of down­town Vancouver during our low approach to the airport. Vancouver Airport is crowded and uninteresting. We waited for our Ottawa flight, another Airbus. "Your flight time will be four hours and seven minutes at a planned altitude of...." I timed them. Four hours and seven minutes after we started our take off, we touched down in Ottawa at nearly mid­night. Tom's wife Caroline was there to meet us. Our backpacks and bags arrived on the carousel. We were not certain they would, especially as they had to be transferred in Vancouver from Canadian Airlines to Air Canada who were in the middle of hostile take over negotiations. Caro took us to our car. It started. Fond goodbyes to Tom, who had made it possible for us, to Caro for loaning him, and then the short drive to Bells Corners. We were home.

      We had conquered the Chilkoot. We were now sourdoughs, at least in our own minds. The stampeders would still say we had it easy.

Thanks to Jo and Tom for helping fulfil a dream. Thanks also to Jo for the delightful cartoons and to Tom for valuable suggestions.

 

 

 

Dedicated to Jo who never let her breast cancer interfere with her enjoyment of life and challenges such as the Chilkoot. Jo died in October 1996.

© Ray Haythornthwaite

September 19, 1992, March 1, 1997, modifications for Web display ( including increasing font size so Tom can read it! }, 18 February 2002