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

284 Notes to Pages 170-173The doctor lingered by the grave of Archdeacon HudsonStuck and told us Illuch about his life and work and IllountaincliIllbingStuck was widely thought to be the first person to climb Denali(Mt McKinley), although Vyvyan's field note for 6 Augustreports meeting an old-timer in Nenana who claimed someonehad beaten Stuck by a year.Frank Foster and we had a long talk. He was a Y orkshireIllanAccording toJohnJoe Kaye's oral history, Frank Fosterworked in partnership with the Jackson brothers for a time(LaPierre 128). On 30 August 1926, Platt and friends met Fosterat his cabin on the lower Porcupine River, only a day's downstreamtravel from Fort Yukon. "Though I'd believe itimpossible," the young Platt wrote,he was the best man we've met yet. Surely treated us royallyand gave us a huge supper of new potatoes and eggs. Stayedovernight at his cabin and slept inside on floor. We talkedtill after midnight. He was up on every subject and usedperfect English. He took first boat over the Rat River in thegold rush of' 98 and it was interesting to hear his experiencesand find ours so comparable to them. He kneweverybody, Jack London, Rex Beach, Service, Steffanson[sic], Michael Mason, and all. Most interesting andhospitable man I ever met. (32)Bill and Sylva Bendy met Foster at Old Crow in September1936 and reported as favourably on him. As well, they locatedhis "permanent cabin on the Porcupine at Bootleg Bend, 65miles above Fort Yukon" (89), and, when they passed it, foundit had a garden and appeared "a nice looking place, with manylittle indications that there is a man with humor and imagination,something more than just enough interest to providefood and shelter. Many trappers' cabins are examples of howIowa man can go when he lives alone in the woods, but notFoster's cabin" (100; a photograph of it appears in Bendy102.).Foster told them that his trip up the Rat River to theKlondike Gold Rush in 1898 involved burning his boat threetim.es:Everybody started out with boats much too heavy to drag upthe Rat. Many of them knew nothing better than to keep onhauling them up through the rapids with block and tackleand were so delayed that they had to winter on the Rat. Buta few, including Mr Foster and his partner, decided thatlighter boats were necessary, burnt their old ones to recoverthe nails, hewed timbers and built lighter ones. As theywent further and further up the Rat, the water became shallowerand this process was repeated twice more. In this waythey managed to cross the divide and reached Fort Yukonbefore the winter set in. (Bendy 89)Tony ... and Buffalo J iIll of Crow River had rescued threeIllen from the jaws of death in SOIlle canyonTony's tale of saving three men from drowning in a canyondoes not appear in any field note. What remains in Vyvyan'sbook was apparently once part of a much longer anecdote, cutfrom the final version at the urging of her publishers (Vyvyanto Owen 2).Mrs Burke, she had been the first woman Illissionary to goup to the Kobuk countryClara Heintz's posting was not in Kobuk country, but atAllakaket, on the Koyukuk River, a northern tributary of theYukon in north-central Alaska. North of the Yukon and not atributary of it, the Kobuk River flows into Kotzebue Sound.north of Bering Strait.a great vessel swung round the bend of the river and turnedin towards our bankThe women steamed downriver aboard the inland sternwheelsteamer, SS Yukon, which was built in Whitehorse and broughtinto service between Dawson and Nenana in 1913 by the BritishYukon Navigation Company (Downs 151; "Yukon"). It wasowned by several concerns before being retired in the lateI950s. Other photographs of it are reproduced in Anderson83,92, and Mason, facing In).The Burkes ... standing like beacon-lights in the lonelynorthland, keeping alive and shining the spirit of trueChristianityMichael Mason thought similarly of the Burkes after a muchlonger period of assessment: .. If ever two people gave up theirlives to ministering to the needs of others. it is Dr and MrsBurke" (62).