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

Introductionxxxvthen nearly a century old, remembered the manhunt clearly but with distaste(64-5). At 67'10'55" N., 136°15'20" W., Mount Sittichinli sits astride theNWTIYukon border forty kilometres north of the point where the DempsterHighway crosses that border (Canada 1989). It was named for Lazarus in 1973.David Elias was the Gwitchin man hired at Old Crow to guide the womendown the Porcupine River to Fort Yukon. According to his sister, VuntutGwitchin Elder Mary Kassi, David was the eldest (she the youngest) of fourteenchildren, whose parents married in 1901; thus, he would probably have beenyounger than Lazarus Sittichinli and a few years older than Jim Koe. Eliasattended the residential school at Carcross, Yukon, where he completed gradetwelve, then took one more year of schooling at Herschel Island (Rampart 62). By1926, he may already have been married to Mary Chitzi. He did not live a longlife. Ten years after guiding the women, he fell ill while hunting near La PierreHouse and was taken by dog team to the doctor at Aklavik. He died there late in1936. His widow remarried and lives today in Fort McPherson (Beairsto).THE TRAVELLERSBorn in Australia, Clara Vyvyan (Rogers, as she was then) moved to England withher family at the age of two, and was raised in Cornwall (Kinsman 646-47).Given that the publication of her first book, Cornish Silhouettes (1924), occurredonly two years before her arctic journey, it is clear that her career did not beginuntil she was nearly forty; but it extended more than four decades, her last bookof new material, Nothing Venture (1967), appearing after she was eighty. In theinterval, she published many articles, including six about her arctic trip, andtwenty-one other books about travel, local Cornish colour, and gardening. Downthe Rhone on Foot, her best known travel title, told the story of a walking trip made atage sixty-seven from the headwaters to the mouth of that French river. Her twovolumeautobiography shows that she was a lifelong voluminous reader. RobertLouis Stevenson's writing had a strong influence. Two of his works in particularmade their mark on her: An Inland V