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

XXXTHE LADIES, THE GWICH'IN, AND THE RATtaking strength from native guides and having to trudge through mosquitoinfestedbush along the river banks. (An editorial note to Chapter 5 containsmore information about the Whittakers' journey [246-47].)In the intervening quarter-century, trips on the route were reported byCharles Camsell, in 1905 (Camsell); by Bishop Isaac Stringer, in 1909 (FrankPeake, The Bishop II8-21); by Robert Service, in 19II (Service, "In"); by A.A.Carroll, in 1913 (mentioned by Vyvyan after the last dated entry in her heldnotes [227]); and by Franklin Hugo Kitto, exploratory engineer in the NaturalResources Intelligence Branch of the Department of the Interior, in 1920(Kitto, "Report"). While far from the hrst Europeans to travel the Rat, Vyvyanand Dorrien Smith were two of the earliest recreational travellers on the transmontaneroute, and information concerning it was still not readily obtainable. So akeen sense of adventure still prevailed. Yet, times were changing, even in 1926:although they did not know it, the women proceeded upriver only two and a halfweeks ahead of a trip by four young American male undergraduates. SherwoodPlatt and friends had canoed from Waterways to Fort Fitzgerald, worked aboardthe SS Distributor in return for their passage on its second trip of the summer,started up the Rat on 251uly (the day before Vyvyan and Dorrien Smith reachedFort Yukon), experienced two snowfalls on their way upstream, returned to FortMcPherson to re-provision for their huge twenty-two-year-old appetites, andhnally reached Fort Yukon on 31 August (Platt).Since 1926, the route has become better known (see Hodgins and Hoyle 197-98). Bill Bendy and his wife, Sylva, completed it in 1936 (Bendy), Alden Hayes'sparty in 1938 (Hayes), Bernard Ederer in 1940 (Ederer), Kenneth Conibearand two Americans in 1947, Eric and Pamela Morse and friends in 1965 (Bayly,Goering, Morse), and the Peake brothers in 1994 (Geoffrey Peake). For his tripin 1965, Eric Morse obtained an assessment of the route by RCMP officer L.R.Bates, in command of the detachment at Old Crow. Bates reported the arrivalthe previous year of two Americans who "had been without food of any amountfor 2 weeks" (qtd in Bayly 55); he stated further that Special Const Benjamin,who had been stationed at Old Crow for ten years, told him "almost every yearthere has been one or two persons travelling this route. However, each time theyreport in at the settlement here, there has been a shortage of food on the trip,with several being out of food for a long period of time. Some have tipped overlosing all groceries and narrowly missed losing their canoes. Most have beenabout 2 weeks behind the schedule they had set for themselves, due to unforeseen