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

XXTHE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RAT\\ ~/,/Braufort Sea~ IIOR II \1\ [ ffERR) I ORIa:II ..o I5obn. Maclren~i"I~------~----~------~IThe »-estern Arcticin 1926,over the mountains. Here lay the path up to the back door; open it, as goldseekers had a generation earlier, and they would reach the Yukon, the Klondike,and Alaska. They motored up to the first rapid on the river and were depositedthere with their two guides. The men towed their canoe upstream while thewomen hiked along shore or were ferried from one bank to the other. Reachingthe source of the Rat after much more toil and trouble than the sojourners hadexpected, they journeyed through the four lakes in McDougall Pass-Twin,Ogilvie, Long, and Summit-thereby passing the height of land from theMackenzie River watershed to the Yukon River watershed. Then they proceededby canoe through Yukon Territory. Passing down the Little Bell and Bell rivers,they reached La Pierre House on 16July. The next day, the guides turned backand the two women continued alone down the Bell and Porcupine rivers to OldCrow, where on 2IJuly they hired another guide to take them to Fort Yukon,