The Floor of Heaven

by Howard Blum

  You head out from Juneau, you need to get back before the first snow or you’d better be prepared to spend an entire year in the far north, the brothers began. The snow comes, you ain’t going out of your cabin, much less making your way out of the frozen Yukon. They spoke more or less in unison, one jumping in to complete the other’s sentences; and George had a private smile thinking how their combined voices, their English accented with a singsong French lilt, brought to mind the choir he had heard sitting next to Becky in church last Christmas Eve in California.

  They continued: Prospecting in the Yukon was hard work, day in, day out. A man who was too easily put off by failure shouldn’t even think of taking up the life. But panning for Yukon gold, rigorous and frustrating as it was, was nothing when compared to what was required of a man in the course of getting there. It was demanding country; it asked a lot from people. You start out, you’d better be sure you had the gumption to see the journey through.

  They were heading to the Stewart River, a big, rolling Yukon waterway that spilled down from the Mackenzie Mountains. Some coarse gold had been found along its banks, and the brothers were convinced these small discoveries were the harbingers of a genuine bonanza. Still, they explained to George with an almost paternal patience, reaching the Stewart would be a real test of a man’s resolve.

  They’d need to find a boat that’d take them to the mouth of the Taiya River, about 120 miles north of Juneau. That might be easy enough. It was the next stage, going over the Chilkoot Pass, that, Al Day warned, was “a real man-killer.” This mountain trail—its summit the boundary line between American Alaska and the Canadian Yukon—was so steep that walking upright while carrying a pack loaded down with the weight of a year’s supplies became nearly impossible. The Indian guides could do it, but most white men wound up crawling on their hands and knees for miles, over hard rock and slick glacial ice and through gusting mountain winds. Then, once you’d climbed the twenty-five miles up and down the pass, you’d arrive at Lake Lindeman. Don’t matter that it’s spring; they told him; we’ll still need to wait for the last of the winter ice covering the lake to break. Course we won’t just be sitting around watching ice melt. We’ll be busy building the boat that’ll take us across Lindeman. It’ll need to be big enough to carry three men and all our grub. And it’d better be seaworthy enough to navigate the churning white-water rapids that lead on up into the Yukon River. From there, it’s on to the lake country; and then if the wind is working with us, it’s just a swift sail up to the Stewart.

  Soon as the brothers had finished, George blurted out, “Got room for one more man?”

  They didn’t. But they’d taken a liking to the enthusiastic young tenderfoot, so they offered him an alternative. If George could partner up with some other men, their outfit could travel with the Day brothers to the Taiya and then on over the Chilkoot Pass and into the Canadian Yukon. The mountain trail would be rough going and, the brothers modestly suggested, their experience might prove useful.

  “That’s good enough for me,” said George. Elated, feeling that his life was once more pointing him toward his long-desired goal, he shook hands with the two men to seal the deal.

  IT DIDN’T take George long to find three more newcomers to join his expedition to the Yukon. Juneau, it seemed, was full of optimistic and daring men ready to make a dangerous gamble as long as it offered even the slimmest prospect of striking it rich. Hugh Donahue, J. V. Dawson, and Dan Foley agreed to match George’s contribution and put $200 each for supplies and equipment into the common pot; still, $800 for four men was a mighty small grubstake. And once the money had been anted up, without much discussion it was settled that George’d be the outfit’s leader. It wasn’t that George had any more experience or knowledge about prospecting than the others. They just recognized that he was bold, and that alone was sufficient, especially among high-spirited men who were looking for further reason to ignore the daunting impracticalities of what they were setting out to do.

  George’s first command decision was to initiate a scheme that’d save the team some money while they remained in Juneau completing their outfitting. He checked out of the hotel that was costing $5 a week and settled into a big tent he pegged down on the outskirts of town; and encouraged by his example the three others moved in, too. They were on top of each other and come nightfall the spring cold found ways of curling under the tent flap, but the shared experience helped to meld them into a team. And although they were just a short hike from Juneau’s general store, George announced that it wasn’t too soon to learn to get by without the cushion of such conveniences. During his time in Sitka, he had heard the Tlingit saying “When the tide goes out, the table is set,” so now he put that wisdom to the test on the beaches of Juneau. He had the men digging up clams, prowling for beached fish, or just buying salmon and halibut from the Indians at ten cents a fish. It was a monotonous diet, but George’s resourceful economy won their respect.

  By the time they were done making all the necessary purchases, they’d laid in near on 800 pounds of supplies. It wasn’t just a larder of foodstuffs, items like bacon, flour, beans, and baking powder. They’d also had to buy the tools they’d need to build a boat: a two-man whipsaw, sturdy axes, iron nails, as well as pitch and oakum. And on the advice of the Day brothers, who had continued to keep a watchful eye on George and his team, they’d stored away plenty of gold and silver coins. They’d need clinking change to hire the packers who’d help carry their heavy load over the Chilkoot Pass, into Canadian territory; Indians, the Days had told George, didn’t trust the white man’s paper money.

  Only now that they were finally ready to leave, there was a sudden crimp in their plans—they couldn’t find a boat to take them on the first leg of their journey. It was 120 miles up to the mouth of the Taiya, and there was no call for either freight or passenger vessels to schedule a trip into such godforsaken country. There wasn’t even a boat for charter. After some thought, George improvised a plan: He’d hire Indians to paddle them up the Lynn Canal, to the mouth of the river. He found a few Auke Indians who were willing, but one look at their narrow dugout canoes made him realize it’d be a doomed voyage. Even if they managed to fit all the team’s supplies into the cedar canoes, the overloaded boats would never make it through the choppy waters without capsizing. There had to be another way, he told his partners, though even as he said the words he knew they owed more to a wish than to logic.

  Yet it turned out that he was right. A passel of Indian braves had gotten hold of some bootleg whiskey; and before a raucous night was over, they’d whooped through the small town of Chilkoot with their guns blazing. This incident proved to be just the bit of luck that George needed.

  A U.S. Navy gunboat, the USS Pinta, stationed at Sitka, was dispatched to apprehend the misbehaving Indians. On its way up to Chilkoot, the Pinta sailed into Juneau. As soon as Al Day saw the smoke from the galley’s stovepipe rising above the harbor, he had an idea. He boarded the Pinta, headed straight for the captain, and he must’ve made quite a persuasive argument. Or perhaps Lieutenant Commander Henry Nichols, USN, simply had a fondness for men chasing after unlikely causes. Whatever the reason, Al got the captain to agree that on his way to Chilkoot, he’d detour to deliver seven men and their supplies to the Taiya.

  Boarding the gunship, the men couldn’t believe their good fortune. George, however, took it in stride; it was further proof, he insisted, that their expedition was blessed. Despite all the obstacles, they’d meet with success. But while making a casual tour around the Pinta’s deck, he saw a sight that in an instant convinced him he’d never make it to the Yukon. Hell, more likely he’d wind up in jail instead. George recognized two sailors he’d served with on the Wachusett. The way they were heading straight toward him, he had no doubt they’d spotted him, too. And he knew: One word to the captain that there was an AWOL sailor on board, and he’d be led off in shackles to a navy brig.

  George prepared himself for the worst. Sure enough, fir
st thing the sailors said was how reckless it was for George, given the circumstances surrounding his hasty departure from the Wachusett, to have come aboard a navy gunboat. But Jesus, George, they said in the next whispered breath, good to see you, shipmate. And no need to worry. We can keep a secret.

  The rest of the voyage was smooth sailing. In fact, when Commander Nichols learned that Dawson and Donahue were heading into the wild without rifles, he issued Springfields, along with 250 rounds of ball cartridges, to the pair. Just return ’em when you’re back in Juneau, the captain ordered.

  On a sunny mid-May morning, the seven prospectors climbed down into the Pinta’s two steam launches. Along with their supplies, the men were ferried to the quick-moving, glacier-fed headwaters of the Taiya River.

  SITTING ROUND the blazing campfire, the Day brothers had gone on about the Chilkoot trail for nights on end. But it wasn’t until George had his first close look, until he’d the opportunity to see with his own eyes the thirty-five-hundred-foot climb he’d need to make over the steep, glittering white slope, that he realized the reality was a lot more formidable even than all the grim warnings. For the first time since he’d blithely shaken hands with the Day brothers back in Juneau, his confidence began to slip.

  Until that morning, the seven prospectors had trudged north for days, following the winding path of the Taiya, and George had been silently congratulating himself on how well things were going. Employing the smatterings of Tlingit he had learned as a marine based in Sitka, he’d succeeded, after an hour or so of dickering, in coming to pretty fair terms with the Chilkoot Indian packers. The negotiated price was $8 per hundred pounds, and each of the forty-eight Indians recruited—young boys and squaws, as well the powerful, thick-chested braves—would also receive a daily cup of flour. Even the Day brothers were impressed with the deal the tenderfoot had cut; in the past, the Indians had demanded $15 per hundred-pound load, and often gotten it.

  Each day on the river trail had been arduous. When they made camp for the night, George let loose with a sigh of relief; even with the hired packers, the rucksack on his back held at least fifty pounds of supplies. Still, the trail had led them through some breathtaking country, past snowcapped sharp-edged peaks, mazes of majestic evergreens, fields of fresh emerald-green grass. A log trading post was the only building in the settlement of Dyea, and its proprietor, John Healy, an aging Indian fighter who as a young scout had smoked pipes with Sitting Bull, was the only white man living in these parts, but George could understand the allure. A high volley of birdsong carried through the pine-scented air, and the post faced an inlet of placid blue-green waters, the shimmering images of chiseled mountains and tall evergreens reflected in its glimmering pools. When George spotted a lone eagle circling overhead, he told himself that he must remember to include the sighting in his diary.

  But five miles from Dyea the trail led straight into a canyon. The sun had turned the remaining snow that lay across the floor of this stony, high-walled crevice into a swamp of thick slush. With George’s pack weighing heavy on his back, each step felt as if he were in a struggle to escape the unforgiving pull of quicksand; the exertion required was enormous. And no sooner had he somehow made it through the canyon than he discovered that the remainder of the trail was blocked by heavy boulders and fallen trees. All George could do was follow the Indians’ example and climb over them as best he could. The grade, too, had begun to rise, and he knew this was only a small promise of what he could expect when they started over the Chilkoot. He was totally spent by the time they made camp. That evening, contrary to all the Days’ instructions, he fell asleep without drying his wet socks over the smoky spruce-bough fire. He was flat out, snoring loudly, before even managing to remove his leather boots.

  In the early morning, he woke up stiff and aching. He came out of his tent, his boots crunching against the fresh layer of ground frost, and for the first time he had a good look at the mountain he intended to climb that day. The camp lay in a broad basin, and from this perspective the Chilkoot stood out from the surrounding peaks. It seemed to rise higher and more steeply, and the sunlight glinted with harsh menace off the green-iced glaciers that fortified its walls. It would be impossible to cross, George suddenly moaned to himself. He’d barely taken a single step, but the muscles in his thighs and calves were still throbbing from yesterday’s ordeal. Yet how could he dare to give up, to turn around and go back? But would that be any less of an embarrassment than surrendering halfway up the mountain? Or, worse, falling to his death, his body lost forever, shrouded each passing year by snow and more snow?

  Then George saw the Indians hoisting their huge sacks—one hundred pounds each!—into their backs. And the Day brothers, too, had lit their cob pipes and were raring to head off. George knew he could not be the only one to quit. He was, he chastised himself, too close to his lifelong goal to give up. So in a tremendous burst of will, he lifted his pack to his back, adjusted the leather shoulder straps, and joined the others.

  It was four miles uphill to the summit, and George had not gone far before it became clear to him that he was locked in a battle to the death: Either he would cross the Chilkoot into the Canadian Yukon or he’d die trying. Even if he didn’t have the heart, it was no longer possible to turn back.

  The snow was thick underfoot. Icy boulders as big as streetcars needed to be traversed. The wind shrieked. A mammoth overhanging glacier reflected the sunlight like a prism, dazzling hues of turquoise, sapphire, and rose bouncing off walls of sheer ice, blinding him, while the huge glacier itself seemed poised to come crashing down at any moment. He sweated under his heavy coat. His socks dripped rivulets of ice. His pack ground down hard on his back as if he were carrying the broad trunk of one of the sturdy evergreens he’d only days before admired. After two miles, the line of bone-weary men reached a flat-ledged slope. The Indians lowered the packs from their backs. It was the signal to rest.

  George could now see the pass’s white-tipped summit. It was tantalizingly close. Nevertheless, he decided he could walk no farther.

  He was right. When the line moved forward for the final ascent, he soon found himself bent over, climbing in an awkward, hunched fashion rather than walking upright. A snow-covered rock slide blocked the trail, and the only way up the increasingly steep path was to pull himself over one icy boulder after another. His legs were cramping. His fingers were numb. In his wet, slick boots, footholds were slippery and brief. By the time he found the muscle and the ingenuity and the will to get over the rock slide, all pride belonged to another life. Crawling on all fours like a beaten animal, George reached the summit. He’d left American Alaska and now was standing in Canadian territory, at the entryway into the vast Yukon. He felt he should let loose with a triumphant yell, but he just didn’t have the strength.

  EVEN IN late May, the ice on Lake Lindeman was still more than a foot thick. It’d be ten days or so, the Day brothers estimated, before it’d start to break and a boat could make its way to the headwaters of the Yukon. But George found that there was plenty to do in the meantime, and in their cruel way, these tasks were nearly as demanding as the trek over the Chilkoot.

  Following the brothers’ instructions, a scaffold known as a saw pit was constructed. Logs were first stripped of their bark, then laid on top of this platform. While one man stood on top of the saw pit grasping one handle of a jag-toothed six-foot whipsaw, another gripped the other handle from below. Back and forth the two men uneasily worked the saw, shavings showering down on the man below, the sinews in their arms straining as with each stroke they fought to raise the saw high above their heads; and, inevitably, tempers flared. It was difficult, backbreaking work, but it was the only way to cut the planks for the boats.

  At last, the ice melted. And the new boats, the pitch on their seams barely dry, went to sea. The Day brothers headed straight for the Stewart River. But George and his partners guided their twenty-foot boat toward a nearby creek that emptied into the clear waters of Lake Bennett
. George had a hunch.

  His hunch didn’t pan out. Still, there were more hunches, and more creeks. The team traveled 150 miles up the Yukon. At the end of months of daily panning, George’s share of the dust they’d found weighed a slight two ounces.

  GEORGE WAS back in Juneau before winter set in. Though he had nothing to show for all his difficult travel and hard work, he wasn’t discouraged. No one could ever call him a cheechako again. He’d proved himself. At last, he was his father’s son. Proudly, he wrote to his sister Rose, “I have done better than I expected the first year.”

  After almost a year on his own, his confidence remained absolute. His belief was religious in its intensity and its certainty. Although he was unable to point to a single piece of tangible evidence, he had no doubts. He concluded the earnest letter to his sister by revealing the cornerstone of his unshakable faith: “There is a big gold field in the Yukon, and I want my share of it. And am going to have it if the Lord wills it.”

  SIXTEEN

  t was one thing, however, for George to believe he’d strike it rich, and it was another to be broke in Alaska with winter setting in. By October, when even the deer had been driven from the mountain meadows above Juneau by the first heavy snows, George had no choice but to abandon his tent. With great reluctance, he dug into the last of his nest egg and took a closet-sized room in a hotel off Front Street. Food, to his relief, wouldn’t be too much of a problem. He’d always been a good rifle shot—truth was, like Charlie Siringo, he could be a little vain about his marksmanship—and there were still ducks and geese bobbing up and down on the waves just beyond the tidal flats. A wing shot, and George would have a feast he could roast over a spruce fire. Netting salmon swimming upstream was even easier. And after the birds flew south and the spawning salmon completed their run, he’d still be able to dig for clams or hook a bottomfish. He wouldn’t starve. Of course, if he could get work, that would certainly give his circumstances a lift, and he’d be able to save for the grubstake he’d need to head back up north in the spring. But this time of year, no one was hiring; even the Treadwell mine, across the channel, was turning people away. Money or not, he’d just have to make do. “I think I can wiggle through the winter all right,” George wrote to his sister, as much to shore up his own spirits as hers.