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

To Fort Yukonr63saw a gas boat towing a scow coming towards us and we all pulled ashore toexchange news. The men were traders, David told us, going up to Old Rampart."My name is Hely," said the man who had been steering the gas boat. "Andmine Dorrien Smith and mine Rogers," we echoed in turn. We asked him manyquestions, after we had answered his; and then we checked our muddled estimatesof mileage. It seemed that we had travelled faster than we had thought andthat we were now not far from the Sheenjek River and only about 50 miles fromFort Yukon.During the last week or two, we had realised that we should just miss thesteamer at Fort Yukon, bound for Dawson and Tanana, but what did that matter?There would be another steamer sometime. We decided that there was no need tohustle and we paddled on in glassy still water, passing the Sheenjek River about 8.Then we made camp without the tent, covering the hard sand with a pile of willowand poplar boughs. There were wonderful echoes in that part of the river andwhen we spoke the trees would give us back our own voices. No wonder that manyof the lone dwellers in Alaska become spook-haunted and queer.The next day, which we knew would be the last in our canoe, the sun wasscorching and we took one hour shifts at paddling with David and found thesemore than long enough. Soon after lunch, he announced that we had come tothe portage where we must leave the canoe and walk across a point ofland for twomiles to Fort Yukon. We looked about us and we could see neither landing place,nor track leading up the bank to the trees, nor any sign that this portage had everbeen made before. David explained that five miles further down the PorcupineRiver, it was joined by the Yukon and that Fort Yukon stood two miles upriverfrom the meeting of the two currents. A man could not paddle a canoe singlehandedup those two miles. We should have to walk across to Fort Yukon and hirea gas boat. Having beached the canoe we left it there with all our belongings in itand set out to follow David across the shortcut from one river to the other. Weshould never have found it alone, for it seemed to us that we were walking intrackless country. It took even David some time to discover the beginning of thisold trail and how he found and kept to it remains a mystery to us, for we could seeneither marks on trees, nor footprints on the ground, nor any other sign thatman had ever passed that way. It was a very long two miles, we felt, as we followedour guide through close-grown spruce trees and through scrubby growth ofbushes. Then we had to push our way through grass, which in some places wasknee-high or even head-high, and then at last we came to a beaten trail leading