Romancing the Klondike

by Donadlson-Yarmey, Joan;

  The three women had laid their bedding on a large canvas sheet on the ground, since the tent did not have a floor. They stored theirs and Ethel’s perishable supplies inside and left the tinned goods, the table and chairs, and their trunks outside. They’d gone into the bush and found dry wood for cooking. Ethel had explained that if they were going to be there over the winter they would need a large supply of cut wood for heat. During that time she’d also become a good friend.

  Four days after they arrived, Clarence came down the river to meet Ethel. He’d gone through the boats on the bank until he found the one he had come in. They loaded up what they could and went upriver to the claim Clarence had staked. Pearl had asked them to let Sam know they were at the Klondike River and were able to look after themselves. Three days later the Berrys were back for another load.

  Ethel told Pearl and Emma that they had seen Sam and had let him know the women were camping at the Klondike.

  “And how did they take that bit of news?” Pearl grinned.

  “Both Sam and Donald seemed a little shocked that you had left Fortymile.”

  “We’d told them we wanted to come here,” Pearl said. “They should have known that we would.”

  “How is Donald…um…?” Emma fumbled. “How are the men?”

  “They’ve built a cabin to live in and were cutting wood for winter when we saw them,” Clarence said.

  Now, the Berrys were making their last trip upriver, taking their perishables from the tent.

  “Are you ladies going to be alright here alone?” Ethel asked, coming over to them.

  “We’ll be fine,” Pearl answered. “This place is starting to grow.” She looked around at the other tents that had been set up since their own arrival.

  “Until we meet again.” Ethel gave each of the women a hug.

  Clarence tipped his hat and then they were pulling their boat up the river. Pearl and Emma watched for a while before going back to their tent.

  They had to think about arranging their things inside to keep them dry. To begin they removed everything from the tent except the stove.

  “We should have torn down the guys’ bunks and brought the lumber.” Pearl stood looking at the empty space.

  “I think we had enough to bring with our food and clothes and this tent,” Emma commented.

  “Until we can find some lumber for beds or a floor, we will still have to sleep on the ground.”

  “Fine. We can roll our bedding up each morning to make more room.”

  They took their bedding back into the tent and set it in the far right corner. Their trunks of clothes went in the left corner.

  They set the table and one chair beside the trunks. Then they brought in the pails, washtub, washboard, wringer, and the box of soap and set them in the corner to the left of the door flap. The other two chairs had to stay outside.

  “We won’t have shelves, so the food that needs to stay dry will have to be piled in the washtub and on the table,” Pearl said.

  They brought in the sacks of flour, cornmeal, sugar, boxes of matches and the dried potatoes, vegetables, and fruit and distributed them between the tub and the table. This left them some room to eat and work at the table.

  The tins of coffee, tea, salt, pepper, baking soda, and canned milk went under the table. They put the bacon, wrapped in cheesecloth and then paper, in a back corner of the tent to keep it cool.

  Pearl and Emma stood in the doorway and surveyed their work. Because nothing could be set close to the stove, there was only a narrow path down the middle of the tent.

  “It’s a good thing Ethel told us to buy a large tent,” Pearl said.

  “We’ll have more room when our bedding is rolled up.”

  “Yes, but if it gets as cold as everyone says, we will have to build some sort of bed to keep us off the hard ground. And speaking of cold, we should get some more firewood. This pile won’t last us long.”

  Pearl picked up their axe and saw while Emma grabbed the length of canvas from under their bedding. Ethel had insisted they buy it, stating it would keep their bedding cleaner on the ground and until they had some sort of sled, the canvas would make hauling wood a lot easier.

  As they walked into the nearby bush, Pearl remembered the times she had visited her grandparents on their farm and learned to cut down trees for firewood. Those experiences were certainly coming in handy, considering Mrs. Wills had said that it cost her $225.00 for a winter’s supply of wood. And Pearl’s money was getting tight right now. She would have to spend it wisely in order for it to last until spring when she hoped to receive payment for her first articles.

  The trees weren’t very big around, so it didn’t take them long to chop down three of them. They sawed them into short log lengths and threw some of those on the canvas. It took three trips before they had the logs piled near their tent. Now they had to saw them into stove lengths, split them and let them dry. That would have to wait a day or two since their muscles were sore.

  Pearl opened the door of the stove and pushed some dry grass in and set kindling over it. She lit the grass and that ignited the kindling, then she added larger pieces of wood and soon had a fire blazing. The small stove gave off lots of warmth, and the top had two lids that to add wood and let more heat into the room. It also had a small side oven.

  Pearl reheated some leftover beans and potatoes for their evening meal and they ate outside enjoying the scene of the Yukon River sedately flowing by in the twilight.

  * * *

  Pearl studied her hair in the hand held mirror. Both she and Emma had tried to keep their hair fashionable since they started their journey but they hadn’t always succeeded and today she resolved to wash her tresses. She’d already hauled four pails of water from the river. Usually they only needed two pails of water a day, but on washday, bath day, and shampooing day, they needed more.

  According to the magazines she’d read it was important to keep the scalp clean as that maintained the purity of the person. She needed to shampoo her hair to keep the particles of dust that settle on the scalp from thickening from the scalp oils. That oily matter would clog the pores and retard the hair growth. So between shampooing’s she dislodged the dust that collected on her scalp by using a moderately stiff brush.

  Pearl set a pot of water on the stove to heat and finely shaved some pure white Castile soap into it. While it dissolved, she took her brush and used the stiff bristles to loosen the dandruff from her scalp. When the water and soap had turned into a thick lather, she carried the pot and a towel outside into the cool morning air. She’d moved a chair away from the tent and now set the pot and towel on it. On the ground beside the chair, she had placed a pail of warm water with a dipper for rinsing.

  Pearl hated the idea of washing her hair out in the open. She considered it part of her toilette that she did private, but life was more primitive here and she had to adjust. She bent and poured a liberal amount of the liquid over her head and rubbed it into her scalp and hair until she felt thoroughly cleansed.

  She dipped the dipper into the pail and poured the already cooling water over her hair, letting the soap drip onto the ground. When the rinse water ran clear, she took the towel and vigorously dried her hair. The best way to dry hair in the summer was in the warm sunlight, but there wasn’t much sun this morning so Pearl returned to the tent and used the heat from the stove to get most of the moisture out.

  While Pearl untangled her hair with a coarse comb, Emma took her turn at washing her own hair. Pearl’s hair was free of snarls when Emma came in to dry and comb hers. Then they checked each other’s hair for split ends and clipped them. Clipping was better and easier than singeing and less dangerous for a woman taking care of her own hair, she had read.

  By the time their hair had been styled, the sun had warmed. Emma took her parasol and went for a walk. Pearl donned a hat, then picked up her sketchpad and pencil and headed out to do some sketching. With the land around them being mainly flat, she didn’t have a vantage
point to look down on the abandoned boats, the wandering men, the tents, and the river.

  To make the best of what view she had Pearl found a rock near the riverbank with an unobstructed view of everything. There she sat and opened her book.

  As she drew the tents, the bushes, and the hill behind, she noticed a muscular man of medium height who seemed to be taking large steps in different directions as if measuring something. He had the sleeves of his white shirt rolled up above his elbows and his black hat pushed back on his head.

  She’d seen him arrive the day before and watched him walk around the area. At the time she wondered what he was doing, but went on about her own business. Now he had aroused her curiosity. Closing her pad, she stood and approached him.

  He seemed so concentrated on what he was doing that he didn’t notice her.

  “Excuse me,” she said.

  He jerked his head, as if started, and she noted that he appeared older than she had first thought, maybe in his late thirties. He had brown hair, streaked with gray and a weathered face. The skin around his dark blue eyes crinkled when he smiled at her, inspiring a strange sensation in her stomach.

  “How may I help you?” he asked.

  Pearl took a deep breath to steady her suddenly tingling nerves. “My name is Pearl Owens.” She couldn’t seem to say anything more.

  “How do you do, Miss Owens?” He gave a slight bow “I’m Joseph Ladue. Are you related to Sam?”

  Joseph Ladue. This was the man Ethel Berry had told her about. “My cousin. I’m here with his sister, Emma.”

  “And why are you here?”

  He had a soft warm voice with a French accent that she found very appealing. She started to reply that she had been curious about what he was doing, but then she realized that wasn’t what he was asking.

  Her voice trembled as she began the spiel she’d already grown tired of telling. Maybe she should come up with something else. “I’ve come north to write articles about life here and the men and women who live it.”

  “Well, you are just in time,” Joseph nodded his head. “You are getting in on the ground floor of what will be the biggest gold strike in this country’s history.”

  “How do you know it will be the biggest? The gold has just been discovered.”

  “Ah.” Joseph waggled his finger at her. “Many men have doubted my prediction of a gold strike over the years, but now I will be vindicated. You just wait and see.”

  “So you have been here for a long time?” Pearl opened her sketchpad to an empty page and wrote his name at the top.

  “I came to the Yukon River area in 1882.”

  “From where?”

  “I was born in Schuyler Falls, New York, but my parents were from Quebec.”

  “That’s where your accent comes from.” Pearl caught herself before saying charming accent.

  “Yes, we spoke French at home.”

  She was having trouble remembering what questions to ask and the one question she really wanted an answer to she was having a hard time figuring out how to slip into the conversation.

  “Can you tell me a bit about your life here?”

  Joseph rubbed his neck and scrunched his face. “There’s not much to tell. I’ve tried prospecting, farming, and for the past two years I’ve owned a trading post on a large island upriver with my partner, Arthur Harper.”

  “Is your wife looking after it while you are here?” Pearl thought she had worded that very well.

  “I’m not married. Yet.”

  Yet. Did that mean he was looking? She hoped so because, for some reason, she felt herself drawn to this older man.

  “Hey, Joe,” someone yelled at him. “I’m needing some lumber. Got any for sale?”

  “As soon as I get my saw mill here,” Joseph hollered back. He looked at Pearl. “I’m sorry but I have to get back to work.”

  “Thank you for answering my questions,” Pearl said, wishing she could ask him more. “Would I be able to speak with you again if I need more information for my article?”

  “Any time you wish.” Joseph’s smile lit up his face as he turned and left.

  Pearl stared after him. For the first time in her life, her heart had been set aflutter by the smile of a man.

  Chapter Nine

  Sam looked up at the sound of voices. He had left Donald and Gordon at the cabin arguing about going to see how Emma and Pearl were doing and was swishing gravel and water in his pan. Sam waved to the two men making their way up the creek. He recognized them but had forgotten their names.

  It was the end of August and, from what he had heard from men stopping in to visit, all Bonanza Creek had now been staked. New prospectors were fanning out across the Klondike watershed looking for more open ground. Some discovered that Bonanza Creek forked and the southern arm wound its way peacefully through a ravine. When they discovered gold on this fork, they renamed it Eldorado and men flocked there to stake claims.

  Many of the men who had claims along the creeks wandered around looking glum and depressed. The euphoria of the dash to the area had vanished. Some, certain that the whole trip had been a waste, headed back to Fortymile.

  One man he had met was a barber from Washington, who had come north to forget about his wife leaving him for another man. Then he’d lost everything in a boat accident on the Pelly River. After staking his claim he’d left, saying he was going to Circle City to open a barber shop.

  Then there were the two men who had stopped in on their way back from going as far as Twenty Above and Twenty One Discovery.

  “Twenty is not worth it,” one of them had said to Sam. “I’ll leave it to the Swedes.”

  Sam knew that saying meant they thought a river or creek valueless. Scandinavians had a reputation for working banks that no one else would. The other man had put his name on stakes for Twenty-One. “But I’m not going to bother registering it.”

  Sam heard a couple of days later that Louis Rhodes of Fortymile had laid claim to the stakes on Twenty-One but wasn’t sure what he was going to do with it.

  Sam had noticed that even some of the old timers doubted the validity of finding gold on Bonanza and they had many reasons why. They thought the valley too broad, the creek on the wrong side of the Yukon River, and the find too far inland.

  “The water probably tastes wrong.” Donald laughed, when he heard the excuses. “Or the trees don’t lean in the right direction.”

  Gordon had been quiet. He’d already offered both Sam and Donald his claim for a hundred dollars but neither man had the money. Sam knew that many of the first prospectors to the creek, believing their claims to be worthless, had sold them within a week.

  But not him. Even if this didn’t produce any more gold for him than the other times he had staked a claim, he wasn’t going to quit. This was his life and he loved it.

  * * *

  Pearl and Emma woke to the sound of rain on the canvas tent. The air outside was frigid.

  “So much for splitting the wood today,” Pearl said. She could see her breath as she spoke and was glad she had brought the heavier nightgowns and the extra blankets.

  “Who’s going to get up and start the fire?” Emma asked, snuggling deeper in her bed.

  “I guess it’s my turn,” Pearl sighed. She remembered mornings like this at her grandparent’s farm. Getting up in the cold and huddling around the fireplace, trying to warm her clothing before putting them on. The winters in Nova Scotia were cold and damp with lots of snow blown about by the wind coming off the Atlantic Ocean. She wondered how cold it would get here.

  Pearl rose and hurried to the stove. She opened the door and saw a few embers lying in the bed of ash. They would soon have to remove the ashes or they wouldn’t have room for the wood. She took the fine kindling from the washtub where they stored it and laid it gently over the embers. With any luck she would be able to restart the fire without using a match.

  She blew gently on the embers watching them glow brighter. Soon there was a wisp of
flame. It licked at the kindling until it caught fire. Once that was going she added some pieces of larger wood. She rushed back to bed to wait until the tent warmed. Now was the time to have a discussion with Emma, a discussion she dreaded.

  “It’s getting near the beginning of September,” Pearl began. “The last boat will be going through on its way to St. Michael and then San Francisco.”

  “Yes,” Emma said, without looking at her. “I’ve been thinking about that.”

  “Have you decided what you want to do?”

  “No,” Emma replied, gloomily. “One day I want to stay and the next I want to go back home. Donald is here and I really want to see if anything will develop between us. Then I wonder if, like when I was younger, it’s only me who thinks there is anything to develop. That’s when I think I should go back and get another job or see if my old one is available.”

  “Do you have enough money to stay the winter?”

  “I don’t think so. I would probably have to find some work here.”

  “Yes. I am going to have to be careful of my spending, also.”

  Emma rolled onto her side and looked at Pearl. “I wonder what type of work there is available for women.”

  “Mrs. Wills opened a laundry in Circle City,” Pearl said. “And Clara Foley is a seamstress. Maybe we could do something like that here.”

  “Did you see how red and rough Mrs. Wills’ hands were?” Emma grimaced. “They looked so painful. I don’t think I want to do laundry.”

  “I don’t know much about being a seamstress,” Pearl admitted. “Other than darning socks and doing cross stitch on table cloths. We could get a gold claim.”

  Emma rolled back until she was staring at the tent ceiling. “I’ve been wondering if we should try that. The only thing is we don’t have any idea of what to do.”

  “We could ask Sam.”

  “Are you serious? If he could have his way we would be on the boat back home tomorrow.”