The Floor of Heaven (20 page)

On the long downhill walk through the icy slush back to the hotel, George began silently blaming himself. It had been a damn silly indulgence to have dawdled so long in California simply because he’d been taken by Becky’s charms. What’d he been thinking? But after a mile or so, his raging, self-accusatory mood began to settle. This was a big country, he reminded himself. There had to be lots of Gold Creeks, lots of opportunities.

In fact George, as naive as he was eager, only had to walk up to the front desk upon his return to the hotel to find reason enough to believe all his reassuring thoughts. That same morning the hotel manager introduced him to the Day brothers, and they had a story to tell. And by the time they’d finished, George’s vague plans had a definite direction.

The Day brothers, Hugh and Albert, were a pair of heavyset, lumbering, gray-bearded French-Canadian prospectors with thick mud-stained gum boots and fraying mackinaws, but in George’s impressionable eyes they might just as well have been gods. They’d lived the rugged prospector’s life he’d only imagined, and—even more reason to admire ’em—they’d enjoyed a fair share of success in the process. After striking it rich in British Columbia, they’d promptly sold their claim and used the money to grubstake a couple of fanciful years prospecting along several of the tributaries that spun off from the upper reaches of the mighty Yukon River. This was unexplored territory, a land of lush green valleys, virgin forests, and raging headwaters, and each day was one of discovery. George listened to their tales with an awe that was near on worshipful. They hadn’t, they admitted without a trace of excuse or apology, much to show for two years of panning. Sure, here and there they’d collected nearly enough gold dust to fill their poke, but they’d returned to Juneau without a single nugget worth bragging about. Still, they weren’t discouraged. Either a prospector figures his luck’s only a brief day away from changing or he might just as well give up the life, they sternly advised the young man. They’d spent the winter making plans for their next expedition, partnering up with Isaac Powers. Soon as they were outfitted, the brothers told George, the three of them would be heading back to the Yukon, and the fortune of gold that was waiting.

Normally quite shy, George listened to the two men and quickly grew too excited to be restrained by his inhibitions. He hurled dozens of questions, and the Day brothers, perhaps flattered by the tenderfoot’s interest or simply glad to have an audience after making conversation with only each other for so long, were generous in their responses. Rather matter-of-factly, neither exaggerating nor ignoring the hardships and challenges, the brothers sucked on their pipes and responded to George’s rapid-fire interrogation. In the process, the two old sourdoughs offered up what amounted to nothing less than a primer for a cheechako, as the Indians called the newcomers to Alaska.

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, first 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.