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2 / The Nature of the Journey
- University of Washington Press
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2 THE NATURE OF THE JOURNEY I n the spring of 1898, Kentucky-born gold seeker Hunter Fitzhugh spent asoul-wrenchingfifty-sevendaysonfoottraversingtheTeslinTrailfrom Telegraph Creek on the Stikine River to the Yukon headwaters at Lake Teslin. Although far less famous than the Chilkoot Pass route into the Yukon, Fitzhugh’s 197–mile journey more than captured the ordeal of gold rush transportation (map 2). Fitzhugh’s was a largely industrialized journey, but for long stretches of that journey he could not escape the labor of moving his body through nature, or the direct connection to nature that such labor brought. He and his partner hauled 1,400 pounds of food and 400 pounds of other supplies on sleds and in packs, with the help of one dog. Each man took 200 to 400 pounds at a time on his sled, with the dog pulling a third sled of 300 pounds. A day’s work meant two or three trips each to move the gear to the next camp, doubling back each time with empty sleds. Much of the trail was covered with snow at the start, which made hauling easier, and the men also followed frozen rivers and streams and crossed lakes wherever they could. Meandering streams took them out of their way, however, so the men took shortcuts overland to shorten the distance. These were “man-killers,” Fitzhugh explained in a letter home to his father, “bare of snow, and nothing but swamp, the very hardest sort of country through which to pull a sled.” Still short of their destination in April, the men faced melting snow and ice, which left the trails bare, and previously solid streams and ponds dan40 gerously rotten. One day they slogged over seven miles of dry land: “We pulled and jerked and swore and sweat over that 1,800 lbs. until sometimes I thought I would go actually crazy with weariness and aggravation.” “You see,”heexplainedtohisfather,“weweretoolateintheseason,andtheSpring being warmer than usual, the trail was perfectly bare in spots from a few feet to several miles in length. Nothing that a man could write or say could give you the faintest idea of the awful work that we had to do on that long, long trail.” He called it “pulling my life out.” As the ice melted, men and sleds fell again and again into icy water, nearly fifty times by the end. Fitzhugh had to dive in more than once to fish both dog and sled out of the freezing slush. They all ended up permanently in The Nature of the Journey / 41 Arctic Circle Teslin Trail Dalton Trail Poor Man's Route Rich Man's Route Fairbanks Sitka Nome Juneau Whitehorse Wrangell Circle Skagway Rampart Saint Michael Ketchikan Russian Mission Fortymile Dawson City Hootalinqua Telegraph Creek Dyea Haines Koyukuk River Y u k o n River Tanana River Chandalar River Fortymile River White R i v e r Klon dike River Stewart River Pelly River Big Salmon River Stikine River Gulf of Alaska Bering Sea map 2. Selected transportation routes to goldfields in the Yukon and Alaska, including the “Rich Man’s Route,” the “Poor Man’s Route,” and the Teslin Trail the water by the end, wading down a stream while struggling to keep the gear dry. “The strain on our minds and bodies during the five days it took to get through that water was maddening. Our lives and possessions were both in the greatest danger, and the work was fearful.” They were saved in another spot by a turn in the weather. “Next night a merciful providence sent us a pretty good freeze,” he explained, “and we took our entire outfit to the last portage over ice as hard and smooth as glass.” That final portage challenged Fitzhugh’s powers of description. For his father he painted the picture of hardship in terms of familiar landscapes at home in Lexington, Kentucky: “Just think of pulling 400 pounds from Lexington to Castleton, up a hill steeper than the South Broadway Hill. Think of that hill being crossed in every direction by thousands of burnt logs and the space between the logs soft and boggy, with from a few inches to a foot or more of ice water standing on it. Then add a mile of winding, pitching, snowless down-hill trail crossed here and there with torrents of water, and you have the tail of the Teslin Trail.” In closing his letter, Fitzhugh provided further insight into...