C Ihe Ladies c cu. V'VVAN - History and Classics, Department of

6 THE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATThis person was our friendly neighbour Leonard Cunliffe, a Director of theHudson's Bay Company; when he heard of our plan he gave us warm encouragementand wrote to Canada to get the information we wanted. Then one day hearrived with a letter from Winnipeg, written to Mr A. Brabant, the managingdirector of the Alberta and Arctic Transportation Company Limited. The letterwas from Edmonton, dated January lIth 1926.Dear SirPROPOSED TRIP TWO ENGLISH LADIESTO MCPHERSON THENCE TO PACIFIC COASTReplying to your letter asking whether it is possible to get from theMackenzie River to the Pacific by either(A) Fort McPherson, Porcupine River, Dawson and Skagway.(B) Peel River, Little Wind River, Loch Lomond, Seela Pass to Dawson.(C) Liard and Dease Rivers across Cassiar Mountains and TelegraphCreek down the Stikine River.Trip (a) which is generally known as the Peel River Portage. A tourist by thename of Mrs Laura Frazeur, who is a professor in a classical University nearChicago, went down on the 2nd trip of the Distributor last year and went acrossthis Portage accompanied by two Indians whom she engaged at Aklavik. It tookher six and a half days to go from McPherson to La Pierre House. At this latterpoint she engaged passage in a gas boat belonging to Jackson Brothers, as far asFort Yukon, where she wirelessed Fairbanks for a plane and flew to that point.From there she went by the American Government Railway to the Gulf ofAlaska and thence to Seattle. Not using plane and going upstream to Dawsonfrom Fort Yukon and thence to Skagway and Vancouver, instead of goingdownstream to the American Government Railway, we estimate that the timeoccupied from Edmonton to Vancouver would be about 50 days provided thatclose connections were made with Jackson Brothers' gas boat at La PierreHouse and Steamer at Fort Yukon. We estimate the cost of this trip for twoladies at thirteen hundred and fifty dollars.Trip (b) which Colonel Cornwall calls the Police or Fitzgerald route. Actingon your suggestion we interviewed the Colonel re this route, and he says thathe never went over it, but from what he has heard about it, it is a winter route,